until January 2nd.

Happy Holidays, New Year etc.

Happy Holidays (photo from 2005 Family Xmas celebration…I have a BIG family, fyi)

I saw I am Legend last weekend and really enjoyed it.  I was pleasantly surprised. Being the gender scholar that I am, I always looking for how gender is being represented. And I thought with the film being about the absence of humanity that well, gender stereotypes wouldn’t come into play as much as say with a film like Juno.  Well, the filmmaker’s sneaked one by the audience. (NOTE: the rest of this is written delicately as to not ruin ESSENTIAL  plot points.)

Will Smith’s character has one companion left with him as the end of the world/humanity spirals near and that is a dog. Yes “man’s” best friend.  The dog is given a semi gender neutral nick name (some may argue it is not so neutral but it is) and assumptions are made about the sex of the dog by audience members. Then in one pivotal scene Will Smith says the dog’s full name thus revealing the dog’s true sex and the audience reacts to that revelation in a way that is typical of when a doctor pronounces if the baby is a boy or girl.

Of course, I didn’t read the book so I don’t know who introduced this interesting development.

I don’t usually plug CNN but their special investigation on tonight about women in Afghanistan Lifting the Veil is very informative and unrelenting in its journalistic methodology. The contrasts the program makes between 2001 when the Taliban ended and six years later, today, are historically potent and relevant.
It is directed and narrated by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy who seems pretty cool!

I saw the movie Juno and have a post to write!

Some article’s on Juno’s portayal of abortion:

A’ not OK: Current U.S. films avoid abortion option offers a close look at the three big pregnancy films this year: Waitress, Knocked Up and Juno. This article provides an in depth look and timelines of how abortion has been shown in films like Dirty Dancing and beyond.

The L Magazine’s I saw Juno Last Night and it Made Me Really Mad is quick to get the real point of it all with this one line: “Um, how come she and her sorta-boyfriend didn’t just use a condom?” This post gets into the real nitty gritty details of the film’s relationship with abortion, safe sex (or lack there or), and all other relevant details.

Entertainment Weekly columnist Lisa Schwarzbaum wishes Juno spent a bit more time on question of to have or not to have the abortion.

The NYTimes claims that Juno and Knocked aren’t anti-abortion they just follow a young woman on a certain path that includes not having an abortion. (Emphasis mine.)

Hollywood’s Got a Case of Baby Fever has an excellent point: it is shocking that someone as articulate as Juno has almost nothing to say about the possibility of an abortion. This also shows a HUGE weakness in the overall plot, Juno’s reasoning not to have an abortion is rushed and does not provide a real explanation as to how she reached that decision.

There is also a slew of articles that claim Juno decided not to have the abortion because of a singular protester outside of the clinic in the film. Um, I didn’t walk away with that feeling at all after seeing the movie.

MY TWO CENTS: The role of the parents in this film was completely unrealistic. They’re upset with her for a minute and then they get over it. The stepmom briefly brings up abortion but then dismisses it when Juno does. The boyfriend doesn’t even broach the subject. What’s going on here? I think what this film offers is a decent look at the OTHER great option: adoption. BUT to have little to zero open and honest discussion of ALL of the options is irresponsible. If you’re going to take on the topic of an unplanned TEENAGE pregnancy like Diablo Cody did, you need to offer the full story. The full story is that people are not only having abortions BUT TALKING ABOUT IT. On the reverse, out of Waitress, Knocked Up, and Juno, this is the only film that even entertains that thought. It’s funny the 16 year old has a more thought out plan than the married woman and career woman in the other films. Ultimately, Juno was a cutesy movie in the vein of films like Garden State with pregnancy as the back drop to a romance story instead of a funeral.

“Making Mormon History” published in the Boston Globe over the weekend was written for me. Or so I like to think! Its been obvious for the past few years or so with Jon Krakaur’s book, the series Big Love, the pbs special, and the notable politicians Harry Reid and Mitt Romney that Mormonism is an official part of popular culture.

What I’ll concentrate on in this post is how Mormon and non-Mormon scholars approach the religion’s history.  One of the main but overlooked differences between Mormonism and other Christian religions (yes, I label it as a branch of Christianity) is that Mormons are not open about their history.  Mormons are quick to tell you about their religion but they are not open to various interpretations of it.  In fact, their archives are not free to the public.  What else sets Mormonism apart it the secretiveness and ritual of the religious ceremonies.  Additionally, Mormon officials are quick to officially exclude, or excommunicate, members who write questionable materials about the religion’s history.

A decade later, in 1993, the church excommunicated several scholars, including D. Michael Quinn, a tenured historian at Brigham Young University who had written a number of controversial works, including one about the persistence of church-sanctioned polygamy after its official ban in 1890. via

It’s not only a scholar’s research about Mormon history that raises eyebrows but its an individual’s political identifications that also causes potential issues.  It is believed that an invitation to speak at BYU was denied to acclaimed historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich because of her self-identified feminism.

The Mormon unwillingness to discuss the past was also evident in Mitt Romney’s speech last week.

Serious analysis of Mormonism has never been more important, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy. In Romney’s speech on faith last week, for example, the candidate spoke movingly about religious tolerance, and tried to highlight similarities between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity, but he said nothing substantive about Mormon theology or history.

I couldn’t agree more that now is the time that real work into the historical analysis of Mormonism is needed. It is also time to do some real comparative studies into similarities between Mormonism and other religious groups/minorities that are unique to the United States.   I hope to do some of that work.

Supposedly back in the 1990s, Huckabee wanted to isolate AIDS patients…wonder how he feels about it now…

“If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague,” Huckabee wrote. via

What a nice medieval approach!

Over at feministing today there was a great piece “There are better ways to keep mama happy” about a recent NYTimes article about men buying presents for their wives for giving birth. A push present.  I saw this term for the first time while reading Momzillas, a book about competitive motherhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

That’s “push” as in, “I the mother, having been through the wringer and pushed out this blessed event, hereby claim my reward.” Or “push” as in, “I’ve delivered something special and now I’m pushing you, my husband/boyfriend, to follow suit.” via

What the piece over at Feministing brings into the mix is how the NYTimes usually leaves socioeconomic class issues out of their articles that center around women’s issues. Of course, a family from a lower income bracket won’t be able to afford expensive jewelry or art pieces when there are more pressing financial to keep in mind as the family expands.

This piece also got me thinking of how often I link to pieces from the NYTimes on the space. It’s true I am a NYTimes fanatic. I love reading it every morning and reach for the Style section on Thursday and Sundays.  But I think its time to branch out and examine pieces about women and issues affecting women in other major newspapers to perhaps do a comparative analysis of the way women are being covered.  For example, would an article about a “push present” occur in a newspaper in Montana. I don’t know but I don’t think so.  I think its time to start looking at this more closely.

I am not saying I’m going to STOP linking to the NYTimes but I’m going to be more careful in how and why I link to certain stories in the future.

(1) Prez hopeful Romney is finally going to address the ISSUE at hand!

Trying to save his presidential campaign from an Iowa swoon, Republican Mitt Romney on Thursday will take on the issue of his Mormon faith by stressing America’s tradition of religious tolerance.

Romney is to make remarks at the presidential library of former President George H.W. Bush in College Station, Texas, not far up the road from Houston, where Democratic candidate John Kennedy in 1960 used a speech to ease concerns about his Catholic faith and went on to win the presidency.

I love how everyone is so quick to compare him to Kennedy on the religion issue and obviously his PR team is doing some great work by having him give this speech in Texas, at a presidential library to boot. But here is what I don’t understand, the complete disregard (on the side of the media) to weigh in on differences between Catholicism and Mormonism. The first one being that Catholicism is a VERY, VERY old religion and well Mormonism hasn’t even hit its second centennial (is there a better way to write that?)

I’ll be looking into that news story tomorrow!

(2) What is going on with beauty pageants?

Miss LA gets told she ain’t Miss California THEN has to call the actual winner and tell her. 

And then the whole pepper spray incident… 

Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling us that there is more to life than winning beauty contests. I am so a feminist!