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dukeofankh · 3 months

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Trying to find progressive masculine community is so exhausting.

I've flipped through local men's groups, trying to find places to explore masculinity in a chill, progressive setting. First of all, they mostly seem to be modelled after AA, and like, my gender isn't a debilitating addiction, it's part of my identity actually, but also, the invite and description of the event have maybe a short paragraph tops actually waving vaguely in the direction of what the purpose of the group is, and then ten to twenty paragraphs breaking down the rules. One spent longer talking about the hand signals he would use to direct conversation than he did describing what the conversation would be about. Another had a full paragraph explaining that if the group thought you were evading what they thought your "real" problem was, they'd probably "call you to take accountability". Like...I don't even know who these people are yet and they're already letting me know that they view it as their right, no, their duty, to bully me into seeing things their way. Like, this is in the invite.

...and this warning is there instead of any sort of breakdown of like, I dunno. Whether you should be a feminist to show up. Whether it was a safe space for queer men. What the hell they wanted to talk about. Joining a men's space is on some level inherently submitting yourself to the authority of the leaders of that group, and you don't usually get a particularly clear breakdown of what the values and goals of those leaders are, because on some level the answer is always going to be "whatever I want"

And like, unfortunately you do need to filter men to build a men's space. You do need to remove or chastise men who act in ways that are toxic or disruptive or misogynistic. If you don't things turn into an MRA chapter pretty quick. But the sort of emergency powers that leadership takes on as a result of that...just kind of naturally end up reproducing masculine heirarchies.

MensLib, the only online community of progressive dudes talking about masculinity that I'm aware of, is...on Reddit. So there is a moderator system. In theory, a moderator is there to...moderate. This is a space where people are going to be talking, and mods are there to make sure things don't get too toxic or off topic.

The issue is that, on some level, that is technically a leadership position. In a sub trying to rehabilitate masculinity. So you've got a bunch of folks who view themselves as the leaders of this bastion of goodness standing against the depredations of the misogynistic internet, guiding the hapless smooth-brain neophytes towards The True Way.

In practice, this looks like 95 percent of the posts submitted for the subreddit being rejected. That isn't hyperbole. On average, the sub has about one new post per day. Almost all posts directly relating a personal experience are deleted immediately, in favour of articles written about masculinity in traditional media publications, which are considered more trustworthy than the sus lived experiences of the guys in the sub. The post I wrote here about the effect of purity culture on male sexual shame that's sitting at about 15K notes was based on a 10K word post I wrote for Reddit that was deleted because "I didn't cite any sources to prove that there is a link between purity culture and male sexual shame, or that my experience was anything more than anecdotal". I get comments deleted on a regular basis, and after paragraphs of protesting in modmail that my comments are both fully in line with feminism and not against the rules, the mods have just finally told me that the rules don't actually drive their actions as a team. They delete anything they feel leads the conversation in a direction they personally feel is unproductive. The rule cited at the time of deletion is really just the broad category of why they decided to hit the button that says nobody is allowed to read what I wrote.

The issue is kind of twofold. First of all, progressive men do not trust other men. A good dude knows that he, individually, is a good person, but literally any other man external to him is on thin ice. Do you really want to tie your wagon to that guy? Do you trust him, really? How do you tell the difference between a guy criticizing an article because it's factually incorrect and criticising it because a woman wrote it? Probably best to play it safe and delete it. Weight of the odds, he's probably a misogynist, right? This is the internet.

And thats the other half of it. If you view yourself as part of the leadership of The Good Guys, and you're getting hatemail from incels and facists all day, you get to the point where most of the time people challenge your authority it's because they're a terrible person. It is very, very easy to get to the point where someone challenging you is seen as evidence that they are a bad person. And now someone is challenging you (and therefore bad), in an environment where you are in charge, and you have a "make your opponent disappear" button.

I know. A Reddit mod was rude to me and now I'm butthurt. It's petty and stupid. I'm just feeling like there's nowhere else to really go, and I'm pretty despondent that literally every space I've seen that even looks like it might be for progressive men has the same deeply hierarchical structure and constant status-oriented squabbling as patriarchal spaces.

#me writing stuff #positive masculinity #menslib

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petals42 · 3 years

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I guess I write sambucky now?? short fic, set post-season 1 (though written before ep 6 airs), established relationship

It’s five months after New York, almost three months after they started being… them when Sam walks into his bedroom to see Bucky sitting on his bed, shirtless. And armless. It’s sitting on the bedside table next to him. He’s tense and almost glaring at it.

“Is something wrong?” Sam says, stepping into the room fully and closing the door. “Is it broken?” Instinctively, he looks around. The last time he had seen Bucky without the arm, it was because the Dora Milaje had disabled it somehow and Sam has no doubt that they could get into this house if they wanted to. They could get into any house if they wanted to.

“No,” Bucky says. “No, it’s just-- it’s heavy, you know? I thought it might be nice to-” he waves at it, lying there, inert on the table. “If that’s okay with you.” He is not looking quite at Sam, but just off to the side like he’s waiting for an order.

“Oh,” Sam says, surprised. He’d never thought about it like that. He figured with all the fancy technology and Bucky’s super strength... “Well--”

“I can put it back on,” Bucky interrupts, reaching for it as if Sam’s fraction of hesitation was the answer he expected. “I know I look weird without--”

“Hey, no, wait,” Sam says and he’s grateful for his training that he’s fast enough he can reach out and grab Bucky’s wrist before Bucky gets a chance to grab the arm. He squats down so they are eye-level. “Wait, that’s not what I was going to say.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, just clenches his jaw as if bracing for bad news. Sam slides his hand up Bucky’s arm to press his hand to Bucky’s cheeks as if he can massage the tension away.

“You do not look weird without the arm,” Sam says. “You look--” he hesitates. They don’t say words like beautiful or gorgeous in their relationship; it’s still mostly playful banter and laughter and Bucky-Bucky doesn’t like words like that. Sam doesn’t like to think about why Bucky doesn’t like words like that. “You look like yourself, man.” He knows he got it right when he feels Bucky relax under him.

“Yeah?” Bucky says and he goes for casual but Sam can hear the relief in it. “You sure?”

“Same ugly mug I’ve been stuck with for months,” Sam says, leaning forward to peck Bucky’s forehead before rising to take off his own shirt and pants. From the corner of his eye, he watches Bucky stretch his arm over his head and roll his shoulders back and Sam can admit to himself that his eyes do catch on the lack a few times, the part where Bucky’s shoulder seems to abruptly end instead of shifting into the cool black of metal but he still looks like Bucky. And he does look relaxed, Sam realizes. He hadn’t thought about how much the arm would weigh or what strain that would put on Bucky’s chest or back, but the shield is heavy, he knows. Throwing it around all day is exhausting. He can’t imagine being literally attached to it all day.

He has to laugh as he finishes brushing his teeth and gets into bed with Bucky still stretching and flexing, twisting around the bed like a contented cat.

“Dude, you want a back massage or something?”

“Mm, does it come with a happy ending?” Bucky says, rolling over to smirk at him.

“See, I try to be nice and your mind goes straight to the gutter,” Sam grumbles, like that’s not one of his favorite things about Bucky, the fact that the man is funny and witty and dirty and-- and still basically purring as he stretches again. Honestly, it’s almost enough to make Sam say yes to both ideas. “Jeez, Buck, when’s the last time you took that thing off?” Sam doesn’t remember seeing it off, really, and that’s weird now that he knows Bucky clearly enjoys it so much.

“Mm… it came off for a second in-”

“I know that one,” Sam says. “That doesn’t count. I mean, like this, like really took it off?”

Next to him, Bucky stops stretching. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I had it off a lot in Wakanda.”

“Wakanda?” Sam says. “Bucky, that was years ago.” A lot of years if you count the time they were blipped.

“Yeah, well,” Bucky lifts one shoulder in a rough approximation of a shrug. “It’s… you know, it’s not safe, really. To have it off. If someone were to attack or--” He closes his eyes and stops himself and Sam knows he’s taking a breath and counting to five. Knows cause sometimes he has to do that too. “I figured, here, with you, it’s probably okay to-- we’re probably okay.”

“Um, excuse me,” Sam says, laughing and shoving at Bucky’s shoulder. “Probably? Man, your boyfriend is Captain America, in case you forgot. I am basically a super solider. I am faster than any human alive-- who hasn’t been superserumed, which is cheating by the way. Ain’t nobody gonna mess with this specimen of strength. This bastion of non-toxic masculinity. This--

“Oh my god,” Bucky says, punching him in the stomach. “Shut up.”

“I’m Captain America! I got you!” Sam says, still laughing. “I will protect you like you are the 51st state! Like you are a bald eagle! Like--”

“I’m going to kill you myself if you don’t shut up,” Bucky says. “With only one arm if I have to.”

“Psh, you couldn’t take me with both arms, old man,” Sam says but he settles back and Bucky rolls into his side, draping his arm across Sam’s waist and they are both warm and happy and Bucky feels safe and Sam feels the same way.

#tfatws #tfatws fic #my fic #sambucky #the falcon and the winter soldier #sam wilson #bucky barnes #buckysam #fanfiction #i guess i go here now?#don't except too much though #here's just a little something

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dgcatanisiri · 3 years

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So, I just want to speak from my personal, individual experience and viewpoint on the Dean/Cas THING.

When I look at queer representation, there is always this part of me that brings up the idea “when I started trying to come to terms with my sexuality, would this character being queer have helped me?” Meaning would seeing this character go through experiences on screen and undergoing growth and development have been able to tell that insecure and scared teenager that he’s not wrong or broken or anything like that for feeling the way he does.

It’s probably a good chunk of why I do seek out queer male portrayals first and foremost. Y’know, looking for those heroes now that I didn’t have then, no matter that I’m now years past that point when I need that to ground myself - I think that no matter how old you get, you’re always going to need heroes to look up to (and it’s why we get so defensive when people bring up how these heroes are problematic, because we’re still looking up to them).

And it’s why I’m always a little ‘...ehhhhh...’ about queer characters who are getting The Queer Narrative™, the stories that depend on them being queer, because the identity that I’ve grown into is not JUST my queerness - not just being gay, not just being ace, I have been through things that have impacted me and had nothing to do with my sexuality or orientation. So when I think about how that would have impacted that younger version of myself, I see him thinking “is this all there is to being this way? Because that’s not how I see myself, so, does that mean that I’m not? Or that I’m doing it wrong?”

See also, littered throughout my “another angry queer rant” tag, various comments about feeling isolated even among what representation I get - this is why, for example, I come away frustrated with a character like Dorian Pavus, whose gayness is the primary focus of his character questline, so making it The One Thing the game wants you to walk away remembering.

So. Dean Winchester and Castiel.

These characters have always resonated for me. You know, characters both who are almost defined by the fact that they have this deep-seated feeling that they are broken in some way. It’s constantly referenced by characters that Cas “had a crack in the chassis from the assembly line” with his affection for humanity and Dean in particular - there’s a pretty obvious metaphor for homosexuality in that. Meanwhile Dean... Okay, digging into the parallels, situational and emotional, gets a little too personal to dive into for me, but suffice to say, when I started watching Supernatural, all the way back in season two, I clicked with Dean from moment one.

So that lays the groundwork for the situation we’re in now.

And look, while I was still picking up DVDs and even the tie-in novels, I stopped watching live somewhere in early season nine. I recognized the baiting as bait and was just tired - I’d watch it later, on my time and on my terms, able to skip past the stale repetition of “I’m gonna do a thing that I say is for your good and keep it secret” style plotlines that had driven much of the series to that point. I was on record years ago as saying that I wouldn’t be happy with canon Destiel unless it had at least about half a season’s worth of growth or development - it wouldn’t have felt like they were risking anything in taking that chance, you know?

But I was actually kinda interested in the stuff that I saw coming through for season fifteen. Storyline seemed interesting, and... I legitimately wasn’t getting my hopes up for Destiel AT. ALL. Like, we all knew Supernatural would Supernatural, it was all just bait, don’t get suckered.

And then... Cas admitted he loved Dean. And look, my reaction to that was a baseline of “conflicted,” for the reasons I pointed out above - decade of baiting, way too late to actually explore this, and of course the obvious element of bury your gays. But at a minimum, given this show’s constant revolving door of death, I wasn’t concerned about that. And... I wanted that win. I wanted to be able to walk away from this show saying that they’d managed to turn a decade of baiting into the foundation of a queer love story, even with all the flaws.

Because Supernatural, being a fifteen year old series, carries the baggage of its time. To say that this show built on toxic masculinity turned from that into a softer, better, more respectful story... It doesn’t undo the harm, but it shows an understanding of the harm inflicted and a willingness and desire to undo it.

But then the finale. And the editing. And cutting. And the discovery that there was a version of the script where this was all explicit. And that the network is the likeliest reason we DON’T have that changed story, that understanding and desire to fix it.

So we find out that the script was making efforts. And that the network, in a blatant and shameless effort to appeal to a particular crowd, the crowd they WANTED to be watching, and, by extension, who they want to follow from Supernatural to Walker, cut out Dean admitting that he loved Cas, and maybe even all the way to imposing the idea that the only way to even have that is by both characters only getting together in heaven, and then denying even that.

Like I realize there’s still an element to conspiracy theory in all of this, but based on the evidence we have, I don’t feel like it’s a stretch to go in that direction, which just says how bad this situation is - the situation that is the network imposing this on the writers, and in the name of defending their homophobic audience from facing even the possibility of this particular perceived bastion of masculinity be anything not straight.

That the network would only allow these characters to be queer literally over their dead bodies, and even then, they wouldn’t even let that be textual.

That is the network saying that there MUST be this strict lineation between the stories for straight characters and gay characters, and we’re looking specifically at male characters here. Like, the Arrowverse shows might get a little more room to maneuver here because there’s at least been some advancement in the comics and they can’t wholly cut that out (and Greg Berlanti being gay himself - if one of the guys at the helm is pushing this, they can actually exert a little more pressure). But are these queer men in the position of having the show centered on them, like the narratives were for Dean Winchester on Supernatural?

So if they are going to allow more nuanced portrayals of queer men exist, they want them strictly as side characters. Characters who, at least in their idea of the show, can be removed without an issue.

THAT, ultimately, is the driving thing for me. That the network says not just “you can only have THESE stories, you can only be supporting the narratives of the straight characters,” but even “don’t you DARE think that you can take center stage like this.” That for daring to try to let these characters express it, the network demanded that they DIE. And that they couldn’t even be reunited in their afterlife.

It’s not just the characters deserving better (which, we really could go in on the fact that Dean spent the better part of the series in a state of suicidal ideation, of believing that he was better off dead but somehow kept surviving, and how gross it is to give this character that chance to live only to kill him off, but I’ve already gone on for like a page now). It’s the silencing of the queer narrative, of the queer characters, this striking down from these suits saying that for daring to want to be in the center of a narrative that lets them be queer without centering on their queerness as their only personality trait, these characters must die without even getting to acknowledge it.

That’s the part that gets to me. The part that says that the network would sooner pursue homophobic money and viewers by killing and silencing queerness than accept that this nonconventional story that resonated for queer viewers, that actively survived as long as it did BECAUSE of queer viewers (because there’s no way that, without the multitude of Destiel fans, Supernatural would have made it to season fifteen)... That it could be queer.

It’s not even that we’ve come so far and gotten nowhere. It’s that they KNOW this show depended on this audience, but they refuse to accept that and refuse to offer even this little sliver of thanks, because it would impact the viewership that they REALLY want.

#dg gets pissed #dg rants #another angry queer rant

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briangroth27 · 5 years

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Mini-Reviews: Ralph Breaks the Internet & The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

I’ve gotten behind on reviewing movies I wrote down thoughts on but never posted, so here’s some quick thoughts on some not-so-recent releases.

Full Spoilers for both of these films…

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Ralph Breaks the Internet is a fun, solid, enjoyable film with a strong message about friendship (and its limits)! I didn’t think Wreck-it Ralph needed a sequel and this doesn’t quite reach the highs of the first film, but it proved itself worthwhile and I was pleasantly surprised when it took things in a completely different direction by inverting Ralph’s (John C. Reilly) goals. Instead of trying to belong with the other denizens of his game by proving that he can be a hero, here Ralph becomes the villain by fighting to keep things the way they are with Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). I liked how big her role was here and I was rooting for her to move past the confines of Sugar Rush, since she’d outgrown it and needed to keep developing.

The marketing made it look like this would mainly be focused on internet gags and Disney IP mashups, and while most of that worked (especially the Disney Princess crossovers and Ralph’s attempts to go viral!), the character work between Ralph and Vanellope was much deeper than I was expecting. That aspect formed the emotional core of the movie and was by far the standout element of the film. The idea of a friendship turning toxic and possessive here was well-explored and definitely a story worth telling. Ralph absolutely goes too far—to the point where he nearly accidentally gets Vanellope deleted to keep her with him—and I’m glad the movie didn’t let that slide or write it off as not a big deal. Gal Godot’s Shank character was also a cool addition and I really enjoyed the effect she had on Vanellope while becoming a rival for Ralph.

I was definitely sorry to see Fix-it Felix Jr. (Jack McBrayer) and Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch) get next to no screen time here, as they were both standouts in the first film. The subplot about them being new parents was fun, but I would’ve rather seen them join Ralph and Vanellope in the internet (and they could’ve still done babysitting jokes while they tried to help Ralph). Their reactions to the internet would’ve provided a greater range of jokes than just Ralph and Vanellope’s did, and their absence was the biggest negative for me and the thing that felt the most off about this sequel.

I thought the first movie could’ve explored more styles of video games and I kinda have the same feeling about the internet here, but ultimately the acting, humor, and character development in both films won out. If there’s a third one, I’d like them to explore the relationship between the video game characters and the people in the real world: I’m satisfied with the explanation that it’s just their job to play the game along with the players, but I wonder if there’s something more to explore there. Whether we get Ralph 3 or not, Ralph Breaks the Internet is definitely worth watching, worth learning from in terms of its message of healthily letting the people closest to you move forward (even without you), and is another really good entry into this franchise!

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

While not quite as novel as the first LEGO Movie or The LEGO Batman Movie, this sequel was definitely a worthy follow-up! The change in scenery to a Mad Max-inspired LEGO wasteland was fun and it was nice to revisit this offbeat cast of characters. Expanding the universe from Bricksburg to the “Systar System” was a fun way to bring in a variety of new characters and environments, keeping things fresh. The constant threat of “Armamageddon” was a solid end-of-the-world plot that touched on Toy Story-esque ideas while feeling fresh and specific to this franchise. It also pulled the real world and the LEGO realm together nicely, feeling like something kids’ imaginations would come up with under parental disciplinary threats.

I was very happy to see The Second Part deal with what I always thought was the first film undercutting its own message in its final seconds: The LEGO Movie established that anyone could play and everyone’s ideas/imagination were valid, only to add that this did not apply to the little sister in the family, since her Duplo blocks’ arrival in Bricksburg was treated like a terrifying invasion. While that’s an outlook a lot of brothers have when they’re young, the first movie played it as a joke at the last second, making it the final word and that always sat wrong with me. Here, that becomes the entire premise and the reveal that her attempt to play with her big brother got her vilified and turned into the “villain” was an excellent commentary on toxic masculinity. Rex Dangervest (Chris Pratt) continued that trend, embodying a super-masculine parody of Chris Pratt’s roles in the MCU and Jurassic World franchises to hilarious effect. I’m glad the movie showed us he was the real villain and that Emmett’s regular personality was the healthier one, rather than supporting the “cooler” Dangervest. Rex being left under the dryer was a clever parallel to the complaints that white male audiences are being “left behind” as more women and minorities take the center stage in movies like Star Wars and the MCU (though while Emmet/Rex was literally left behind, those complaints are vast overreactions…there are still hundreds of male protagonists out there). Rex turning Emmet into a more “badass” action hero like himself is also a cool way to use the time travel aspect to depict toxic masculinity infecting even the kindest of hearts. Rex’s plan to trigger Armamageddon also felt a lot like these angry fans crying that their favorite franchises have been ruined and are “over,” trying to cancel what they previously loved (or freeze it in amber…or a storage tub) so no one can have these characters if they aren’t the center of things.

WyldStyle (Elizabeth Banks) was awesome as always and I liked that she got to see the real world as well this time. That she was the one to figure out what was really going on was a nice beat too, especially since it was pointed out that she did a lot of the work in the first film but Emmet got the credit. Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) was a great “villain” & I liked how they animated her shape-shifting. Her relationship with Batman (Will Arnett) worked really well for me & felt like the sort of thing a little sister would do with her brother’s action figures. I think it’s important that Batman and Whatevra still get married after Finn (Jadon Sand, Graham Miller) and Bianca (Brooklynn Prince) patched things up: ultra-cool Batman—who could easily be another bastion of toxic masculinity—doesn’t settle down just because he’s been captured and forced to, but gets married after the sibling rift is mended and the toxic anger Rex was manifesting (from Finn) is gone. The blended LEGO world of Bricksburg and the Systar System—Syspocalypstar—was a cool mix of the siblings’ personalities and a great message that we can still make room for each other in our lives, imaginations, and fandoms.

The songs are catchy and fun, the animation is great, and the pacing is brisk. It didn’t feel like they relied on cameos from other IPs in this movie (even Batman’s reduced role works better now that he’s had his own movie where he can be the focus) and the message is solid. I’m not sure where they go from here, but I would definitely watch another LEGO Movie! Until then, check The Second Part out!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!

#ralph wrecks the internet #the lego movie 2

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machetelanding · 6 years

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It’s trendy these days to blame our problems on men– mass shootings, sexual assault, war. All of these, feminists say, can be traced back to what they call “toxic masculinity” — the infectious disease of maleness that we’ve let pervade society for far too long. Since, they purport, men are the common denominator in so many of the tragedies our country endures, they must be the root of our unrest.

In an effort to snuff out this male toxicity, Hollywood — our bastion of reason and morality — suggests that we emasculate men. Surely that will do the trick! After all, how many mass shooters, sexual harassers and rapists do you know who are eunuchs? Exactly. This explains why chauvinist-turned-Ghandi Jimmy Kimmel joked at the Oscars that “Oscar is the perfect man” because he has “no penis at all.” As the old saying goes, ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, castrate ‘em.’

Just days later, this was the cover of The Hollywood Reporter:

Tongue-in-cheek or not, the underlying message from the entertainment industry is clear: maleness is the core of our trouble. If we had less of it, the world would be a better place. Take a look at a few of these recent headlines:

Alright. We get it: men are bad. And, apparently, if men were just less masculine– weaker, more feminine, gentler — we wouldn’t have so many issues. And, really, except for being contradicted by every piece of factual data in existence, the theory is flawless.

What these man-hating, virtue-signaling, third-wave feminist whitewashed tombs don’t realize is: it’s not masculinity that’s the problem, it’s a lack of masculinity. It’s not male strength that’s the base of our issues, it’s male weakness.

Confident, self-assured men– the kind our society needs — don’t rape women. They don’t harass their female employees. Brave men don’t bully their peers. Strong men don’t shoot up schools. They don’t patronize or hurt others to prove their masculinity.

Weak, insecure ones do.

That’s why 26 out of the last 27 deadliest mass shooters were fatherless. That’s why boys who grow up in single-mother homes are twice as likely to commit crimes than those who grow up with a present dad. That’s why both sons and daughters are more likely to become depressed without a strong relationship with their father. That’s why 71% of high school dropouts are fatherless.

Not because they had too much male strength in their lives, but because they didn’t have enough.

If masculinity were truly toxic, then wouldn’t boys and girls who grow up without dads be happier and healthier? If it were better that men were more like women, wouldn’t kids be just as content with a mom than with having a father, too?

Like it or not, masculinity — in its best, strongest form — is the kingpin of the family. Humble, strong leadership as expressed by a father is simply not, in most cases, adequately replaced by a mother. Those without a strong father tend to act out in aggression in their adolescent and adult years– not because they’re oversaturated with maleness, but because they’re starving for it.

The void caused by fatherlessness, along with its consequential damage, should be a pretty good indication that it’s not less or weaker men that we need, but more strong ones. If the family deteriorates because of a lack of a strong male figure, doesn’t it follow that society, too, falls apart without strong, honorable men?

If we know that kids who grow up without dads are more likely to be a threat to themselves and to others, shouldn’t we be trying to save masculinity, rather than kill it?

Unfortunately, as logical as it may seem, that line of thinking is seen as radical to the Left, who are working hard towards their dystopian future, where humanity is nothing more than an amorphous, genderless blob of nihilistic relativism. The idea of “traditional family values” doesn’t exactly fit into their plans.

The simple truth is: we need good men. We need strong dads. We need loyal brothers and friends. We need them to be protective. We need them to work hard. We need them to care. We need them to be present. We need them to stand up for us. We need them to hold it together. We need all of the things that feminists swear we don’t. We need honest, self-sacrificing, servant-leader, and — yes — Christlike men. We need them, and we women need to raise, encourage and affirm them into existence. (I made a quite controversial video about this once.)

I don’t mean that women can’t be these things, too; I believe in the power and purpose of strong women. Anyone who knows how outspoken and career-minded I am, and that I don’t take well to being patronized. The necessity of masculinity has nothing to do with diminishing the strength of women– it has to do with complementing and bolstering it.

Masculine strength comes in many forms, and in its truest, it loves, protects, serves, works, builds and fortifies in a way that only it can.

Let’s encourage that masculinity rather than shaming it into nonexistence. Our future as a society literally depends on it.

#allie beth stuckey #men #society #misandry #sexism #masculinity #beta male #fathers #sons #boys #fatherlessness #anti feminism #anti feminist #anti sjw #the hollywood reporter #hollywood

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sinceileftyoublog · 5 years

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Live Picks: 10/29

Kishi Bashi; Photo by Max Ritter

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Two sides of hip hop, baroque pop, and a disco jam.

Sex Cells tour, Thalia Hall

Marc Almond (Soft Cell) headlines as part of the Sex Cells tour for an In The Round performance. Also performing are Andy Butler disco project Hercules and Love Affair, leather band Plack Blague, DJ Matt Pernicano, and Danny Lethal.

JPEGMAFIA, Bottom Lounge

Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks is still getting used to verified life, but he’s not retreating. On his third studio album All My Heroes Are Cornballs, a highly anticipated follow-up to 2018 breakout Veteran, rapper JPEGMAFIA doubles down on what made him stand out: darkly humorous and direct socially aware lyrics, products of an intimate knowledge of both alpha and beta toxic masculinity, combined with production that switches on a dime between aggressive and dreamy.

Peggy’s ability to put himself in various mindsets is partially responsible for his lyrical success. He sings from a female perspective on opener “Jesus Forgive Me, I Am a Thot” and “Thot Tactics”, comparing the upfront nature of sexual promiscuity to his take-no-prisoners mentality; “Your shit don't bump, you was not proactive / Sneak dissin', that is not attractive,” he explains on the latter. More difficult, he inhabits and subsequently destroys incel culture. “Shitpost, n**ga / When I die, my tombstone’s Twitter, Twitter,” he raps on “Beta Male Strategies”, referring to the various all-talk online threats he faces on a seemingly daily basis. Really, Peggy’s lamenting his appeal to these types of people. “I made rap my job, it’s sacred,” he declares on the title track, decrying white America’s inability to understand where he’s coming from. On closer “Papi I Missed You”, he’s brutally honest, rapping, “Ha, I'm a terrorist (Yeah), I don't spit raps, bitch I spit rhetoric / And I be in your kid's mind, gettin' leverage / I hate old white ni***s, I'm prejudiced (Yeah).” He’s not an alpha himself, he admits on the Helena Deland-featuring, self-reflexive “Free the Frail” (instead comparing himself to Carly Rae Jepsen), but when it comes to defeating the enemy, he’ll call upon his army training. “One shot turn Steve Bannon into Steve Hawking,” he quips in admittedly bad taste on “PRONE!”

Yet, it’s not just white supremacy that Peggy’s fighting against. It’s the whitewashing of culture in general. “They want me Kevin James, bitch, pay me like Kevin Hart,” he differentiates on “Rap Grow Old & Die x No Child Left Behind”. The “Black Brian Wilson” he labels himself elsewhere, a fitting title considering his production and curation prowess. Only half of a song is NOT produced by Peggy here, and he even goes so far as to include a “JPEGMAFIA TYPE BEAT”, alternating between pummeling drums and lilting synth lines with embedded hand claps. It takes Peggy’s self-aware black excellence--a creative and intelligent mind like his combined with his life experiences--to combine so many disparate elements into a cohesive, forward-thinking, Internet-conquering album that’s punker than most punk and bangs harder most rap.

Album score: 8.8/10

All My Heroes Are Cornballs by JPEGMAFIA

West Baltimore rapper and producer Butch Dawson opens.

Kishi Bashi, Metro

Kishi Bashi’s Omoiyari project centers around Japanese incaceration during WWII, something he was inspired to explore in the context of white supremacy rearing its ugly head yet again. There’s an upcoming documentary (due out early 2020), but for now, he’s released the music, his fourth studio album, and his best because it provides some weight to the usual indie pop preciousness to which he succumbs. Listen to any previous record of his, and you’re bound to think of the usual touchstones, Sufjan Stevens, The Shins, and Andrew Bird, and more recently, Bon Iver, Local Natives, and Darlingside. This time around, you hear those bands in the Laurel Canyon breeze of “Penny Rabbit and Summer Beat”, layered vocals and violin plucks of “Marigolds”, and whistling and cooing of “A Song For You”. But much of the album avoids spot the influence because it’s so personal.

For instance, the lush instrumentals of “Summer of ‘42″ soundtrack an improbable love story at an incarceration camp, while the sweeping cinema of “Violin Tsunami” and non-lyrical singing of “A Meal For Leaves” provide emotional heft. On the string, piano, and banjo-laden “Theme From Jerome (Forgotten Words)”, Ishibashi sings of “forgotten words from Japan”, a possible reference to the fact that Japanese literature was banned in the camps; his inclusion of Japanese in the song feels like a rekindling of heritage. Perhaps most stirring is “F Delano”. It starts out portraying a friend’s bad experience at the Delano hotel in Las Vegas but takes a turn, ultimately critical of a President heralded as a true bastion of progressive policies who nonetheless oversaw Japanese incarceration.

Yet, criticizing FDR would be too easy. “Angeline” centers around the Jim Crow practice of convict leasing, which wouldn’t be that notable of an inclusion on its own. But convict leasing was ended by FDR, and in context of “F Delano”, it reads not as Ishibashi’s attempt to upend who we think of as progressive, but his attempt to stand up for the freedom of all. Taken as a whole, Omoiyari is a truly noble effort.

Album score: 7.4/10

Atlanta pop artist Pip The Pansy opens.

Skyzoo, Promontory

Okay, this is the complete opposite of JPEGMAFIA on the rap spectrum. The decidedly old-school Skyzoo teamed up with Pete Rock last month for an album called--wait for it--Retropolitan. Pete Rock takes beats from his Illmatic sessions on “It’s All Good”. Nas’ “The World Is Yours” is sampled on Griselda crew posse cut “Eastern Conference All-Stars”. “Glorious” starts with a recording of a Miles Davis interview segueing into an old soul sample; “Eastern Conference All-Stars” ends with a snippet of MLK’s Selma speech. These are tropes well-done but well-worn.

Thankfully, as with most Skyzoo records, it’s the lyrics that cement the album’s various times and places. “You couldn’t take the Brooklyn outta me,” he declares on “Glorious” before swiftly describing life as an upwardly mobile, socially aware black man in two rhyming couplets: “Moved out of the Stuy and bought yard space / But still dressed like I'm outside ducking a car chase / Still a black fist in the air quick as a heart rate / Nikes over Yeezys, Kaepernick over Kanye.” He opens “Homegrown” with a depressingly timeless line: “I’m America’s worst nightmare, huh / I’m young, black, and too intelligent to be cared.” On “One Time”, which features an indelibly smooth vocal hook from Raheem DeVaughn, he harks back to 1997 with swiftness and simultaneous nostalgia and exhaustion. “One time we was being followed by 12 / Quoting ‘Ready to Die’ so we was probably twelve / Boys pulled us over like we had product to sell.” If the somewhat stubborn classicism of the production frustrates, it’s the clarity with which Skyzoo illustrates the social ills that continue to pervade America that provides a worthwhile connection between the past and the future. Ultimately, he and his friends keep on keepin’ on however they know how. Benny the Butcher gets rich off of selling dope on “Eastern Conference All-Stars”, even richer talking about it on rap songs. The Obama-referencing title of the final track on Retropolitan speaks for itself: “The Audacity of Dope”. Your move, Pusha T, because our elected officials certainly won’t make any to improve people’s lives.

Album score: 6.7/10

eLZhi opens (and presumably joins Skyzoo for “Eastern Conference All-Stars”, on which he, too, is featured).

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jonathanbogart · 7 years

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Yugotones: Balkan Communist Pop and New Wave

Part six of seven (probably). Parts one through five can be found by clicking the tag “my mixology career” at the bottom of this post; probably wait until you’ve clicked through to the full post before you do that, though. (Yes, I am explaining Tumblr to people who are not on Tumblr.)

The YouTube playlist for this mix is here. The tracklist is below; my notes on the mix, the background, and the songs are below that.

Bebi Dol, “Rudi”

Xenia, “Troje”

Zabranjeno Pušenje “Zenica blues”

Data, “Neka ti se dese prave stvari”

Dorian Gray, “Za tvoje oči”

Borghesia, “On”

Idoli, “Bambina”

Film, “Boje su u nama”

Bastion, “Hollywood”

Slađana Milošević, “Ja sam neka čudna vrsta”

Bliski Susret, “Kao nekad”

Plavi Orkestar, “Suada”

D’Boys, “Mi smo D’Boys”

Denis i Denis, “Program tvog kompjutera”

Gjurmët, “Të shtrirë mbi kanape”

Zana Nimani, “Što ne znam gde si sad”

Paraf, “Fini dečko”

Crvena Jabuka, “Nek’ te on ljubi”

U Škripcu, “Siđi do reke”

Videosex, “Moja Mama”

Josipa Lisac, “Ja bolujem”

Yugotones: balkan communist pop and new wave

For a long time when I was planning these mixes, I was going to lump all of Eastern Europe together into one Behind The Iron Curtain mix. But the more I listened and read and understood, the less snugly that seemed to fit the facts. Not just because Yugoslavia had broken away from the Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc in the 1960s, siding with Maoist China in the Sino-Soviet split, but because Yugoslavian media — print, radio, and television — did not wholly abjure the decadent West. State-owned record labels issued foreign and local beat groups in the 60s and prog and hard rock groups in the 70s, with the result that the Balkan punk wave hit roughly contemporaneously with the French, Spanish, Italian, etc. waves. (Meanwhile, in the Soviet sphere, Fifties and Sixties rock signifiers were only just starting to gain official approval, as we will see.)

There was, and is, far more complexity to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as it existed between 1945 and 1992 than I can hope to convey here, even if I fully grasped it all, which I don’t remotely. But put simply: ethnic tensions, especially between the richer, more populous, and administratively overrepresented Serbs and minority populations like Croats and Bosnians, were always high. The 1980 death of President-for-Life Josip Broz Tito, who came to power fighting Fascists in the 1940s, accelerated those tensions, and ghouls like Slobodan Milošević would take advantage of the power vacuum to stoke the flames of ethnic resentment: the horrific post-breakup wars of the 1990s, which are all most of us know about the Balkans, were far more the product of sustained propaganda campaigns than of any regional propensity for violence — indeed, propensities for violence are inculcated by means of sustained propaganda. (Which is how toxic masculinity, to choose an example not at all at random, operates.)

But very little of that grimness, tension, or rage is present within this music, which like much of the rest of European pop in the early 80s is both excited and wary about new technology, eagerly devouring the new and rummaging through the old to see what can be relevantly cannibalized, and giddy with its own creative strength. Although Eastern European and Balkan rock has since the 80s gained a certain reputation for seriousness, not to say dourness, that’s only partly true here — mostly, granted, because my own predilections privilege the froth and giddiness of pop rather than the grim chug of rock, but also because Yugoslav society (to the extent it was a unified society) was much freer and more open in the 80s than it had been for decades. The death of Tito functioned much like the death of Franco had in Spain: the old truths (and especially the old censorships) no longer held, and all kinds of material rose to fill a marketplace which had weathered thirty years of the Cold War better than any other in Eastern Europe.

In fact, you have to go to MTV in the Us or Top of the Pops in the UK to find as much solid pop-video work as there is in this mix: most of the biggest songs had several different videos, because there were a lot of competing pop shows on Yugoslav television and sometimes they each commissioned their own video.

There is still plenty of Communism represented in the mix, though: notably the predominance of the state record label, Jugoton, as the issuer of most of the music below. Variants mostly reflect the city of origin, to which point: Yugoslavia was a federation of six socialist republics: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro, as well as two autonomous communities within Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina. Linguistically diverse (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are all to some degree mutually intelligible, but Slovene, Macedonian, and Kosovar Albanian are not), ethnically and religiously heterogeneous, and with a long history of nominal administrative unity but distinct local practices, Yugoslavia represents the point in these mixes where my slender grasp on the languages in question fails entirely.

There are seven Serbian, seven Croatian, three Bosnian, two Slovene, one Macedonian and one Kosovar songs, not that I could distinguish any of them except diacritically. Albania, the Balkan socialist republic bounded by Yugoslavia and the Mediterranean, is not represented at all except linguistically (Kosovo is largely ethnic Albanian); state repression of non-folk popular music was enforced in Tirana until the 1990s.

I think that’s all the hedging I wanted to do. Although this project has been called a “deep dive,” I think of it much more as a surface skim. Anyone with the patience to click around on YouTube, fact-check against Discogs, and use Chrome’s translation tools could do the same. You can too. If you like anything you hear, you should.

1. Bebi Dol Rudi PGP RTB | Belgrade, 1983

We open with perhaps the most perfect pop song produced in Eastern Europe all decade: a valentine to Rudolph Valentino, sung by Serbian pop starlet Dragana Šarić. Her stage name is such deliberately infantilizing phonetic English that the breadth of her music, far from being lolita-esque dance-pop, can take the unwary by surprise. Her work was influenced by jazz, Arabic pop, and traditional Slavic folk as well as international pop: and despite its puppy-love lyrics, “Rudi” is structurally surprising, as she takes a basic pop song and unfolds unexpected harmonic filigree in post-chorus vocal flights. The voluptuous sweep of the melody fits in well with the plush erotic fantasies enacted on screen by Valentino: one video clip has Šarić intercut with scenes The Sheik, which helps elucidate the colonialist trappings of Western commodified (heterosexual) desire.

2. Xenia Troje Jugoton | Zagreb, 1984

What I always think of as the Blondie model of pop — a sharp pop-rock band fronted by a cool, attractive woman — was extremely popular in the early 1980s, and in Yugoslavia every major ethnicity had their own. Xenia was the Croatian version: singer Vesna Vrandečić was the singer, although on this single (“Three”) she cedes the chorus to the band’s guitarist and songwriter Robert Funčić’s laid-back almost-rap. Since it’s a song about the drama of men fighting over a woman, and the chorus is first-person from one of the men, it makes a kind of sense: but overshadowing both singers is the tense, blustery edge of the music, all paranoia and bluster, replicating the physical sensation of being in the room for such a fight.

3. Zabranjeno Pušenje Zenica blues Jugoton | Sarajevo, 1984

Although one of the smaller and poorer republics in the Yugoslav federation, Bosnia was one of the few to engender an honest-to-goodness local cultural movement (as opposed to merely imitations of Western models) in the 1980s. The “Novi primitivizam” (New Primitivism) that swept Sarajevo between 1981 and 1987 was a jocular proletarian reaction to the self-serious New Romanticism of British import (and Croatian popularization, as we will see) and Slovenian Neue Slowenische Kunst (we’ll see a bit of that too). Zabranjeno Pušenje were perhaps the foremost Novi primitivizam band: a folk-punk outfit like the Fugs or the Mekons, their music was characterized by local slang (often borrowed Turkicisms), simple melodies, and rudimentary instrumentation. Their low-key anthem “Zenica blues” (sometimes “bluz”) is a Johnny Cash-like tale of petty criminality, prison sentences, and the gloomy garrison at Zenica.

4. Data Neka ti se dese prave stvari Jugoton | Belgrade, 1984

YouTube comments are full of how this is a copy of Depeche Mode’s “See You,” but a synthesizer doing the wedding-bells riff from the end of “Then He Kissed Me” isn’t exactly an original thought. Regardless, it’s a beautiful synthpop gem from associates of Serbian synth-funk collective the Master Scratch Band. The three members of Data, who also played behind the Scratch Band’s girl group Šizike, only produced a single 45 under that name, but have been endlessly compiled and reissued on the strength of it.

5. Dorian Gray Za tvoje oči Jugoton | Zagreb, 1985

The Croatian adoption of the British New Romantic ethos found its greatest exponents in a band named after an Oscar Wilde character, whose first single, “Sjaj u tami,” was a Scott Walker cover, and whose singer, Massimo Savić, ran the gamut of glam-rock masculinity from David Bowie fey to Bryan Ferry louche. “Za tvoje oči” (For Your Eyes) was the title song from their second LP, a crooning, brooding masterpiece but commercially disappointing; the following year, Savić went solo, and has become an elder statesman of glamorous, elegant Croatian pop.

6. Borghesia On FV Založba | Ljubljana, 1985

The most famous musical wing of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Art; the German title is intentional) was the long-serving industrial band Laibach — since they primarily sing in English, they don’t appear here. But fellow-travelers Borghesia, also industrial, electronic, and dark, primarily sang in Slovene. “On” (He) is a full-on Electronic Body Music song, as developed by Belgian group Front 242: arpeggiators and screams soundtrack lyrics to a descent into fetishism which even in choppy Google Translate makes Venus in Furs read like Mother Goose. The video needs no translation: it’s not remotely safe for work.

7. Idoli Bambina Jugoton | Belgrade, 1983

More or less the founders and guiding spirit of the Serbian new wave, Idoli (Italian for idols) came to prominence in 1980 with songs like the post-punk “Retko te viđam sa devojkama” (I Rarely See You with Girls), about closeted homosexuality, and the Cossack-ska “Maljčiki” (Boys), mocking Soviet socialist-realist aesthetics. By 1983 they had produced several of the landmark albums of the era and had little left to prove; their final album Čokolada (Chocolate) was a huge-selling last hurrah, full of pop hooks and complicated sentiment. “Bambina” sounds like a love song, but the lyrics are actually full of suspicion and resentment.

8. Film Boje su u nama Jugoton | Zagreb, 1983

The Croatian standard-bearers of new wave — so much Idoli’s counterparts that they co-headlined a joint tour in 1981 — by 1983 Film were closer to the shiny guitar-pop of classic rock than to the twistier, more acerbic edge of new wave. Their 1983 album Sva čuda svijeta (All the Wonders of the World) leaned into the Hollywood signifiers suggested by their name: album opener “Boje su u nama” (We Are Made of Stars) includes Dirty Harry, Kubrick, and MGM references before the song even kicks in. When it does, it’s a blissed-out relative of “Start Me Up,” as hippy-glam as Marc Bolan at his best.

9. Bastion Hollywood PGP RTB | Skopje, 1984

The sole representative of Macedonia in this mix, Bastion was a four-person operation: one on synths, one on bass, one on vocals, and one on songwriting and visual art. The result of that skeletal operation was a surprisingly dubby approach to synthpop, as singer Ana Kostovska’s Lwin-y vocals wander around an endless funk-bass echo chamber punctuated by all kinds of sounds. The lyrics are the usual trenchant commentary on the dream factory that you would expect from the title, but the bass is the reason to listen.

10. Slađana Milošević Ja sam neka čudna vrsta Jugoton | Belgrade, 1983

My choice of this song to represent Slađana Milošević (her first name can also be written Sladjana) is perhaps eccentric, but it fit too well in the mix to not. Something between the Grace Jones and the Nina Hagen of Serbian new wave, she had weathered controversy in the late 70s for her Patti Smith-inspired rock, and was such an international pop star that her 1983 record Neutral Design was recorded in Munich with German musicians. It’s a hell of a record: every song made it onto Yugoslav television, often in multiple videos, and they’re all good. This, the closer (“I’m an Odd Sort”), is unexpectedly light and breezy: a witchy, jazzy calypso in which she mostly sticks to a high, soft register to sing about forbidden knowledge and how poor an adept the song’s “you” is.

11. Bliski Susret Kao nekad Jugoton | Zagreb, 1984

It wouldn’t be an entry in this mix series if I didn’t include at least one single that has never been reissued and is only available on YouTube. The Croatian act called Bliski Susret (Close Encounter) only issued a single song (the B-side is the same song in English), this beautiful slice of studio-based nostalgia, all production and sentiment. It was a one-man show: Željko Bošković, whose real career has been as a studio owner and producer in Zagreb, producing some of the best Croatian pop of the last thirty years. “Kao nekad” (Like Before), which sums up romantic pop from Spector to Gainsbourg, remains a swoon-worthy calling card.

12. Plavi Orkestar Suada Jugoton | Sarajevo, 1985

Bosnian pop in the 80s was not at all just the New Primitivism, although no doubt its emphasis on stripped-down structures and folkloric origins had some influence on Plavi Orkestar, who sound exactly like what a Western conception of “Balkan pop-punk” might be. Anatolian rock riffs, all-comrades-together shouted choruses, and lovelorn lyrics about a faithless woman — and in the middle eight, about forgetting the faithless woman by going out on the town with your boys — made “Suada” a huge hit, the first of Plavi Orkestar’s long and enviable career.

13. D’Boys Mi smo D’Boys Jugoton | Belgrade, 1983

There are more differences than similarities, but the act that kept coming to mind as I dug into the D’Boys discography was Wham! Like George and Andrew, they were dismissed as lightweight pop fluff compared to the Real Rockers surrounding them; like George, Peđa D'Boy (Predrag Jovanović) assimilated a host of influences and went largely unrecognized as an innovator who predicted much of the trashier end of the European 90s. Which doesn’t mean that the Laughing Gnome effect which opens this drum-machine-and-guitar-bash anthem isn’t a throwback; but it’s also a sound I’ve heard a lot more often in global pop in the 2010s. “Mi smo D’Boys” means “We Are D’Boys,” and Peđa’s party (in both senses) sloganeering over its dumb-brick simplicity makes me think of such ironists as Morrissey, Neil Tennant, and Jarvis Cocker — another D’Boys track, “Sexy Sexy,” sounds unaccountably like “Common People.”

14. Denis i Denis Program tvog kompjutera Jugoton | Rijeka, 1984

Comparing Croatian synthpop duo Denis i Denis to British acts like Eurythmics or Yazoo is probably less illuminating than otherwise; but the general set-up is equivalent. Davor Tolja was the synthesizer maven, Marina Perazić the voice and sex symbol: her gasps and strangled sobs during recording were as important to the band’s electronic-erotic aesthetic as her low, singing voice. This single (Your Computer Program) was their biggest hit, but they were so consistent between 1983 and 1988 that just about any record could have gone in.

15. Gjurmët Të shtrirë mbi kanape RTP | Pristina, 1985

The sole representative of Kosovo on this mix, Gjurmët were very nearly the first rock act to sing in Albanian ever, and probably the first recorded. Their only release during their years of activity in the 1980s was a cassette delayed by the censors for over a year due to perceived Albanian nationalism, but later reissues, as both Albanian and Kosovar culture has become more open, have kept their memory faintly alive. “Të shtrirë mbi kanape” (Sprawled on the Couch) is their best uptempo song, urgent and moody, with superb new-wave guitar heroics from Bekim Dyla.

16. Zana Nimani Što ne znam gde si sad Jugoton | Belgrade, 1986

If Xenia was the Croatian Blondie, the Serbian edition was Zana, with a series of sparkling power-pop hits over the early 80s. But when singer Zana Nimani, for whom the band was named, left in 1985, the band carried on with a succession of new singers and little diminution in popularity. Nimani’s only solo album, 1986’s Noćas pevam samo tebi (Tonight I Sing Only for You) was recorded in Sweden, and this minor hit (I Don’t Know Where You Are Now) sounds like it: shiny and heartfelt, only her melodramatic voice gives her away as Balkan.

17. Paraf Fini dečko ZKP RTVL | Zagreb, 1981

In these mixes I’ve had little patience for straight-up punk or its immediate descendents, but Paraf are unique and strong enough to be an exception. They began as a shouty punk band, and were important enough to make the 1979 compilation documenting Zagreb’s punk scene; but after their first album in 1980 singer Valter Kocijančić quit, and female singer Vim Cola (Pavica Mijatović), and keyboardist Raul Varlen joined. They moved towards anthemic post-punk, as documented by this first single in the new line-up. “Fini dečko” means “FIne Boyfriend,” and the lyrics document how weirded out Cola is by a good, clean, upright boy. They would go on to make some of the most politically righteous music of the Croatian new wave, but this single, with one foot still in punk, is their most fun.

18. Crvena Jabuka Nek’ te on ljubi Jugoton | Sarajevo, 1986

Don’t be fooled by the huge glossy opening chords: Crvena Jabuka (Red Apple) aren’t a Sarajevan Van Halen (not that that would be a bad thing). They’re closer to a Bosnian Enuff Z’Nuff: a shiny hard-rock body over a winsome 60s-pop chassis. Named after the Beatles label, their self-titled debut album in 1986 was an immediate hit: but several months later the lead singer and the bass player were killed in a car accident. The remaining members forged on, and achieved even greater success, becoming one of the key figures of late 80s and early 90s Yugoslav rock; they still record today. “Nek’ te on ljubi (Kad ne mogu ja)” (Let Him Love You [If I Cannot]) is a power-pop gem that had unexpected resonance after frontman Dražen Ričl was replaced, and surpassed, by keyboard player Dražen Žeri.

19. U Škripcu Siđi do reke Jugoton | Belgrade, 1983

This shouldn’t be your only exposure to Balkan pop: there’s so much I haven’t included, from synthpop pioneers Boa and cross-dressing glam-funk star Oliver Mandić to stuff I don’t even know about. But after hearing it, I had to include “Siđi do reke” (Come Down to the River) by post-punk band turned New Romantics U škripcu (In a Heartbeat) no matter who I bumped. A hovering, almost ambient piece, equal parts “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” and traditional Serbian folk song, it’s one of the magnificent centerpieces of 80s Yugoslav pop.

20. Videosex Moja Mama ZKP RTVL | Ljubljana, 1983

The Slovene equivalent to the Croatian Xenia and the Serbian Zana was Videosex, who were probably the best of them all: singer Anja Rupel had more personality and the band was more versatile, jumping from straight-up synthpop like “Moja Mama” (My Mama, a mocking pout about stepmothers) to the noirish “Detektivska priča” (Detective Story) and even reaching back to 1940s swing for “Tko je zgazio gospođu mjesec” (Who Was the Lady of the Month). Rupel would go on to sing with Laibach; but this early giddy work remains unspeakably delightful.

21. Josipa Lisac Ja bolujem Jugoton | Zagreb, 1987

Comparisons to Kate Bush would be arrant nonsense: Croatian singer Josipa Lisac had been a distinguished art-rock singer for a decade before “Wuthering Heights,” both with beat group Zlatni Akordi and on her own. But in the neon 80s her eccentric sense of style was given room to flourish, and she made a series of crucial recordings halfway between pop, electronic rock, and local art-song traditions. When she presented “Ja bolujem” (I’m Suffering) at the 1987 MESAM festival in a dress that moved on its own as dancers below it ran through an intricate choreography, it was a magnificent capstone on the first half of her career. She’s since gone on to a more sedate Céline-like goddesshood, but her voice is still one of the most powerful instruments in the Balkans.

Next: “Eastern Europe” is a vast territory to cover. Whatever I do, I will not do it justice. My only comfort is that I haven’t done justice to anywhere else either.

#my mixology career

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milfnipples · 7 years

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the bad part about wanting lgbt representation in overwatch is that there is almost always gonna be more cons than pros…. i’m not saying that as i am against the representation but when you have to depend on a company where their main demographic are straight men, it will never be handled correctly. either from the company or the fans.

for example:

when tracer was announced as being canonically in a relationship with emily, most straight men players (sadly the main demographic) who read the comic lost their shit. others who didnt read the comic had no idea that she was even dating emily because of lack of content in game. the ones who did read the comic either celebrated it, assumed she was bisexual so that men gamers still “had a chance” with a fictional woman, or hated that she was with emily.

most of the current characters have more cons than pros if they were to be announced as lgbt. either straight men gamers would be upset with the choices if the next character to be confirmed as lgbt was a man or they’d fetishize the character if they were a woman. or straight women would fetishize the lgbt men characters and alienate the women characters.

mei, mercy, widowmaker, d.va, sombra being lesbian, trans, or bisexual would either cause straight men to fetishize them or they would get upset because they don’t have the chance to project their toxic masculinity against these femme characters and try to “date” them. this would also cause the straight women “yaoi” communities to alienate these characters or treat them as an annoyance for getting in the middle of their gay ships. as for mei and d.va, they would get worse treatment because of straight men’s infantization of eastern asian women.

genji being gay, trans, or bisexual is extremely unlikely just because of the overwhelming amount of gency lines and lore in game. or cause an uproar from straight men gaming community.

mccree, reaper, solder: 76, or hanzo being lgbt would most likely cause an uproar from straight men gamers who hate mlm and/or think that those characters being gay, bisexual, or trans lowers the masculinity factor that most straight men gamers enjoy and love playing them for. the flip side is that because the four of these men characters are conventionally attractive, it would make the straight women who enjoy the game fetishize the men even more than they already do.

roadhog being gay, trans, or bisexual would cause the straight men gamers to treat him even worse than they already do because of his weight and age. they’d lose more respect for his character because of his orientation, gender, and appearance.

junkrat being gay, trans, or bisexual would give the same response as roadhog. the straight men playing the game would lose more respect than they had already because he is designed to be a comic relief character. not only does that cause an uproar, but its also just bad representation because of his implied mental issues and his comic relief position in the game’s lore.

lucio being gay, trans, or bisexual would cause more problems because already the community spews very racist jokes at the expense of lucio. it could only get worse if he was confirmed as a black lgbt man.

reinhardt or torbjorn being lgbt would most likely cause an uproar from straight men gamers think that those characters being gay, bisexual, or trans lowers the masculinity factor that most straight men gamers enjoy and love playing them for. it also would cause both characters to lose respect because of their age or appearances.

ana being lesbian, trans, or bisexual would cause straight men to either fetishize her or become angry and confused about her being pharah’s mother (lesbians or trans people can have biological children if they choose) it could also cause her to lose respect because of her being an lgbt egyptian woman.

pharah being lesbian, trans, or bisexual could cause straight men to fetishize her, or get upset because of no longer having a chance with her (she’s fictional?) it could also cause them to no longer play her because she would be an lgbt egyptian woman.

zarya being lesbian, trans, or bisexual is likely just because of her heavily butch woman coding but it would also cause straight men to alienate her more and lose more respect for her character than there is already.

symmetra being lesbian, trans, or bisexual would cause straight men to either fetishize her even more or alienate her because she is already confirmed as autistic in canon. they’d lose respect for her more than they already have because of her being an lgbt autistic indian woman.

bastion, orisa, or zenyatta being lgbt would cause more people to treat them as a joke because “robots shouldn’t have sexualities or genders.” (even though they are projected onto them anyway) it also is bad representation because it shows that blizzard is just kinda slapping them onto non-human characters which alienates the lgbt community from the gaming community

winston being gay, trans, or bisexual would cause more people to lose respect for his character because he is non-human which alienates the lgbt community from the gaming community. it would also lead to more furry jokes at his expense from the gaming community.

while i am not happy with the way blizzard has treated tracer’s sexuality in canon by not including any content in game or expanding on her and emily’s relationship, you can tell they chose tracer because of her strong butch woman coding.

the lgbt needs more representation in the gaming community and blizzard is trying but not enough and still cares more about profit from straight men gamers than true representation of lgbt gamers.

#syd talks #long post #overwatch #lgbt #ok to rb

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lunaciclo · 6 years

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Men or mice: is masculinity in crisis?

We are in the midst of a renewed discussion about masculinity in crisis. The latest contribution comes from Iain Duncan Smith, who this week suggested at a Tory Conference fringe event that unmarried men from poorer backgrounds are prone to become “dysfunctional” human beings who can be problematic for society. His words mirror other recent descriptions of masculinity as “toxic”, “broken” and, especially, “in crisis”.

The rise of this purported crisis debate is indicative of the fact we are living in a time of significant social change. Because so many of the historical constructions of society are fundamentally patriarchal, when those ossified structures are loosened – whether by a movement (first- and second-wave feminism, for example) or circumstance (de-industrialisation, financial crisis, or the fracturing of political predictabilities) – then any one-size conception of masculinity buried within them is thrown into the open.

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Football, with its rigid and simplified codes of accepted behaviour, can provide a very clear lens for viewing the relationship between what a man is expected to be in a particular world, and what can become of a man who does not meet those expectations – both inside the squad, and on the terraces.

And nowhere is the triangular relationship between football, place and hard-clung hegemonic ideals more pronounced than in the post-industrial heartlands of the north: Glasgow, Liverpool and the north-east. Which, statistically, are the areas where men are markedly “in crisis”.

The most recent ONS figures show the north-east has the highest avoidable mortality rate for males in England. Suicide, the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK, has its second highest rate in the region – a fact that, for many commentators, bears some relation to statistics on joblessness and employment precarity. The north-east had the joint-lowest average actual weekly hours of work by men during the last tax year.

Throughout history, a common instigator of the masculinity-in-crisis conversation has been the shifting of cultural constructions of the workplace – and it was one such fretful period that gave rise to the institution of football in the first place. As Victorian men moved from the fields into factories, so grew a fear that their sons, now spending more time at home with their mothers, were at risk of becoming feminised, or “inverted” (the Freudian term for homosexual).

Organised sport, with its emphasis on male bonding and toughness, was a concerted work of remasculinisation. Over time, as football clubs gained popularity, that masculine paradigm remained in place, bolted on to the parallel institutions of heavy industry that grew alongside the sport.

For a great many men, there is still a safety in the familiarity of that structure. The industry may be gone, but the way of life – the kind of man – it embodies still echoes out from every empty shipyard and derelict factory. Picking apart the threads of its masculine tradition can, to some, feel tantamount to the denigration of a people’s history. Take away the external edifice to expose the inner core of any man with a fixed belief system – one that might traditionally promote hardness over shyness, the repudiation of emotional expression – and what is often revealed is an anxiety of relevance.

The Men’s Voices Project gives an absorbing insight into this anxiety. It is a sound exhibition curated from dozens of interviews with men and boys in the north-east – from Deerbolt Young Offenders Institution, Barnardo’s Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programme and The Woodlands Pupil Referral Unit – in which we can hear, as the undercurrent to many of the conversations, the issue of control.

One of the notable refrains is an unease, particularly of older men, at the so-called feminisation of the workplace, as clerical and service industries have taken the place of manufacturing labour. Even though these newer industries are themselves mostly insecure forms of employment, a private insecurity repeatedly shows itself at the idea of a man not being the breadwinner:

“If my missus was … the sole provider, I think there’d be a lot of friction in the house, because my manliness would be gone… I would feel really angry at her, and at myself. But probably at myself more.”

To some men, the balance of power has reversed and, in the words of another interviewee: “It’s the man that needs the equal rights, not the woman. It’s the man that’s getting put out.”

‘Lost sense of masculinity’

The loss of industry over the last half century has taken with it a vital signifier of identity for many men. And in their reconstruction of who they are, their football club is sometimes the last remaining bastion.

There are men in the stands at Sunderland, Newcastle and Middlesbrough, as there are throughout the north, who used to work in factories, shipyards, steelworks. It is natural enough that their sons and grandsons beside them might feel a connection to that heritage, steeped as it is into the culture of match day – from the names of the pubs they drink in before the game to the stories at the bar of times gone by, that lock together into a framework of belonging.

But thinking of that framework as inviolable is problematic. For one thing, the match day environment is, slowly but surely, moving with the times. As Simon Bolton, of the Middlesbrough Official Supporters Club, puts it: “If you want to mix purely with other men and feel that you’re in an environment of male dominance, forget going to a match at the Riverside … Boro fans come in all ages, young and old, and all genders. If the men of today want to use football as a way of regaining any lost sense of masculinity, they’d best look elsewhere.”

Furthermore, a preconceived identity can be a burden as much as it can be a celebration. The image of the Newcastle supporter, in particular, can be a trying one to live up to. I spoke to one fan whose father worked as an oil rig electrician, and whose grandfather was a foreman joiner at the Swan Hunter shipyard. Dan, however, “can’t wire a plug”. He works in new media, and moved away from the city two decades ago. His own sense of belonging comes, now, from the outside, and he has an honest appraisal of the typecast of a Newcastle supporter:

“I’ve always felt it became a parody of itself. There’s a real media perception of what Geordie men are like, that becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s a kernel – it comes from reality – but the perception of it means that you actually live up to that stereotype. It’s an inherited way of behaving.”

When I asked him what that way of behaving is, he told me a statistic about champagne drinking: that Newcastle has the highest rate of champagne consumption per capita outside of London. “Hedonistic,” he says, “is an apt word for the Geordie man.”

Hedonism, certainly, is associated with the popular perception of the city, in a way that, in the other post-industrialised urban centres of the region, it is not. And hedonism as an identity, a stereotype, can be a difficult cross to bear too.

‘Love the lunatic’

Dan grew up in Whickham, the town next to Dunstan, birthplace of the ultimate Geordie self-fulfilling prophecy. Paul Gascoigne was the son of a hod-carrier father and a mother who worked in a chip shop and as a cleaner. He came from a background of working-class masculinity – and signed as an apprentice for Newcastle with the purpose of taking on the role of family breadwinner.

From this lineage of Geordie Men, as the cultural fabric of the area began to change, the persona of “Gazza” led the way for a new kind of post-industrial masculine identity. He was every inch a Geordie, but one that came to represent the hedonistic, hard-drinking party spirit that started to brand Newcastle in the nineties. He was daft as a brush, drunk; yet limitless, messianic.

The constraints of such an act, however, can have the consequence that, once the structure around that life falls away, so too can the individual attached to it. Gascoigne’s struggles, pre- and post-retirement, with alcohol, mental illness, bankruptcy, gambling and bulimia have been lengthily documented. His ex-wife has written about the years of domestic abuse he subjected her to. He has been prosecuted for assault and, more recently, racist abuse.

But throughout his psychological and physical deterioration, when what he has clearly needed is a supported departure from his old way of living, it is notable that the barometer of his health has habitually been measured, publicly, not by signs of a new Gascoigne, but by applauding any reversion to the man he used to be ...

“Great to see Gazza back on form” ... “Great to see Gazza in such sparkling form. Love the lunatic.” (Piers Morgan and Gary Lineker tweets after Gascoigne’s appearance on the Fletch and Sav show, 2015)

It is not only Paul Gascoigne who has found himself emotionally and socially hamstrung by that tagline: “love the lunatic”. The expectation to behave in a prescribed way (which, pertinently, for Gascoigne does involve showing emotion) brings us back to the anxiety of relevance that many men feel.

A recent book about Tyneside, Akenside Syndrome: Scratching the Surface of Geordie Identity by Joe Sharkey, describes an alienation felt by those men of the area who are not in tune with accepted codes of masculinity. The author outlines “four pillars” of Geordie identity – class, accent, drink, football – to which the Geordie male is supposed to conform. There is a pressure to be that person which comes from the outside, as Dan describes, and also from within.

Andrew Hankinson, the author of a brilliant, bruising narrative about the Tyneside murderer Raoul Moat, You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life (You Are Raoul Moat) – a story that Gascoigne has a brief, bizarre connection to, as he tried to bring a chicken and a fishing rod to Moat during the police stand-off – explained to me his own feelings of Akenside Syndrome:

“There’s an unreconstructed nature to masculinity in the north-east and I don’t come up to scratch: I don’t have a Geordie accent, I’m not into football, I don’t go out on the piss on Friday nights, I do childcare ... I once had a ticket inspector on the metro ask me why I was looking after my kids on a weekday.”

Hankinson ascribes a similar feeling of not fitting in to Moat himself: “He hardly drank, he didn’t like football. People assume he was trying to overcome a crisis of masculinity by working out and developing big muscles and being violent, but I actually think his crisis of masculinity was as evident in what he said and wrote about money.” According to Hankinson, “he regarded an expensive car and big house as status symbols of masculinity, but he couldn’t achieve them, and it made him feel horrible about himself.”

‘I’m crying, I’m angry’

Performing a man is not the same thing as being a man. There can be a security in the performance, though, because it sidesteps the difficulty that confronting emotions and thoughts entails. One of the Men’s Voices conversations that most struck me was one in which an interviewee admits the emotional challenge of walking his dog – because being alone, without the surrounding noise of work, sport and banter, can be hard:

“I find myself, the longer the walk goes, [getting] more upset … Well, actually, more de-stressed – but through that period to being de-stressed, I’m crying, I’m angry, I’m running … It takes a while to get to that place.”

What some men need – not only in the north-east, but in all those areas of life (private and public) where an old, familiar order has broken down and men have yet to let in different kinds of identity – is help getting them to that place; acknowledging rather than avoiding the difficulty of the transition. Focusing attention on the everyday crises that people are facing is part of that. Support (together with its counterpart: governmental relieving of the policies and ideologies that put men, and women, in economic and social hardship) is another.

And such support is growing. The Men’s Cree project in County Durham is one such initiative. Set up by the East Durham Community Trust in 2010, each cree (a vernacular word for a pigeon shed) provides an encouraging environment for men to come and simply talk. From 11 crees the project has grown, by the time of the council’s recent taking of the project in-house, to 41 across the whole of the county.

Much of the spread was achieved, the trust’s chief-executive Malcolm Fallow told me, by word of mouth: “At bus stands, or by people mentioning it to men who they knew had been bereaved or lost their job.” The success of the scheme is in its straightforwardness. There is always an activity – repairing bikes; growing vegetables; stonemasonry; heritage site visits – around and through which the men can talk to each other.

The Inequality Project: the Guardian's in-depth look at our unequal world

Fallow related one especially moving story about a former miner who used to do the shopping “for his wife”, as the man saw it, and would not tell her if he knew she had missed items off the list, knowing it would mean he’d get another trip to the shop. “That would fill his afternoon in. But once he had the [pigeon] shed to go to, that wasn’t necessary.”

For this man, as for many others who have benefited from the project, simply finding a new activity to organise his time around improved his mental health. Replacing an entrenched structure with nothing is an inevitable cause of real crisis. Replacing it with a new box to be put in is not healthy either.

Dialogue, openness, empathy and equality are what is needed by us all – men and women – both to aid those in trouble, and to move the crisis conversation on from “how to be a man” to “how to be a person”.

source: https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/oct/06/men-or-mice-is-masculinity-in-crisis-ross-raisin

#subject #article #masculinity #identity

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draconicapologies · 7 years

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For the past day or two I've been in this weird limbo of constantly jumping around stories of mine and such And the only thing I keep landing on is TEQ but it's largely in such a vague capacity it's not really working on it and it's - annoying.

Even more so because though I love it incredibly and have stupid amounts of time and effort into it I know I'm not likely to ever really do anything with it.

It'll just sit in my head and my notes my heart and be this dumb, useless fucking, saga about a stupid time travelling horse who's based on jack harkness but so clearly not and lives in a so heavily headcanoned version of Equestria it's dumb and just I've just so much effort into this thing and I love it and it's characters all so much and honestly feel so disgusting attached to these characters I've thrown through hell and humanised so much. And just, I'm not even done. There's so much still to work on and it's been like fucking years.

And the kicker is it's all, in honest to true fuck, worthless because Jesus Christ it's about candy coloured horses who time travel and fight aliens and deal with shit like depression and horrific violence and shit like whos the fucking audience here. Nobody because it's dumb bullshit that's markedly not for children but making them not ponies is a not option because it's a big part of a lot of it and how I view it and just.

I love Torchwood Equestria with all my heart.

I love Orion - my dumb, dramatic, childish, emotional, hero wanna be who loves too hard and quips so often to hide his own fucking depression.

I love Lucid and their goddamn, mysterious ass past which I don't even fully know yet beyond lots of horrible fucking shit happened to them yet they're still this joke cracking innuendo machine with the self confidence of a god, sometimes.

I love Study and his detached, subtle emotions because processing shit like that is hard when you've been emotionally stunted as fuck as a child because of your shitty and racist parents. With his small smiles and blunt sarcasm.

I love Tinder and her goddamn painfully relate mess of a person she is and her awful teen life choices which 100% fucked her over beyond just being cringy.

I love Crystal and the fucking double edged blanket she wraps herself in by claiming herself and awful, selfish butch and her distance and fear of letting down the polished facade she's built up.

I love Robbie and Tater with their adorable sweetness and utter fuck you to toxic masculinity.

I love Dutch with her fucking, mysterious but definitely not good past which led her to be such a desperately clingy to the point of helping commit fucking murders. And her adorable facade and insane friendship with a Blues and then Violet.

I love Violet and her old lady badassness who continues on even after her husbands death destroys her. Even after she finds out he never fuvking told her about Dutch's past because he didn't trust her.

I love the still fucking unnamed doctor who works at Orion's original base. Anger issues by the bucketload and depression and self-loathe by the trucktons which makes a cynical, angry mess who tends to lash out and thinks he's selfish as fuck and cares for no-one only to always give them all he has.

I love Tally and her gentle loneliness and utter dorkiness. Her blatant love of numbers and incredible core strength that sees her literally be willing to blow herself the fuck up to save everyone - even when offered an out.

I love Cookie and her ability to carry on despite her anxiety and despite her shitty as fuck abusive ex-husband hurting her so badly. Her tearing apart her own wings in anxious fits because she needs to be punished and knows it stupid but can't fucking help it sometimes because something's never leave easily.

I love Nimbus and her stupid fear of commitment and complicated relationship with her son who she gave up to be adopted because she had no idea how to look after him. Her badly chosen night with Storm and the fact it doesn't even get the chance to go down in real flame because they both get killed before they can even talk it out.

I love Cavalier and Bastion and their tentative and ridiculous relationship. I love Ma'am and her stupid fucking, never looks or acts the same shtick and knowing literally nothing about her other than she's singlehandedly the biggest badass and knows everything.

I love Quiver and Gardina and Steam and the fuvking stupid as shit mess that's their adorable polyship where both the grumpy dragon and sexy archer fall head over heels for this daft, hippie zebra.

I love young Night Blitz and his fucking deviously clever mind and his tragic fucking death which ends up putting Orion on the path of a solider in his stead - filling what he never got to be.

I love the bases and the stupid jokes and emotional moments between friends and the guy-wrenching fuck ups that all these stupid fucking horses are And I know that ultimately it's pretty much fucking useless as shit because it's so hard to do something with and who's ever going to be fucking interested.

And I feel like I'd gets tons of flack over its existence because mlp is for kids - no matter how I label it and no matter that the horrifically gore and shit filled masterpiece of Fallout; Equestria exists. I don't want to be having a half crisis over this because I love this dumb piece of shit with all my heart and it honestly makes me so happy so often because these guys are my fucking kids and I've literally cried over them I adore them and yet it fucking upsets me to know that at the end of the day this shit is pretty much pointless.

I spend so much time and effort and care. And 900% of it is still just in my head and so mired in having known it for years that explaining it can be so fucking difficult and those I try to explain it to never seem that interested and I mean It's fucking, oddly dark and serious yet also stupid and goofy candy coloured magical horses who fight aliens and deal with lots of emotional trauma I mean. It's stupid as fucking shit. Stupid as motherfucking goddamn shit. But I love it so hard.

And feel like I can't explain parts because of the subject matters and then that in itself makes it sound sillier and shallower and stupider that I'm so attached to it.

Maybe it's because it's late at night that I'm having a crisis over this. Or maybe it's latent anxiety from exams and not having any focus to study in the slightest. I don't know. I just know I'm upset and feel like I'm deeply wasting my time on something stupid but I love it so much I honestly can't ever leave it or the characters behind.

Like there's so much to explain and there's so much to it and the characters but I feel like I can never make them sound half decent and as complex as I know them as, and.

God I'm gunna shut up now. This is stupidly fucking long. And about stupid fucking horses who fight aliens. Jesus fuck man.

#apolo bitches about shit #i suppose that tag applies i guess

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