Offbeat princesses

Within the week, not one, not two, but THREE movie trailers have come out that feature princess protagonists: Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror Mirror (the kid-friendly version of Snow White, apparently), and now Brave, with Pixar's first female main character.  So far it looks like Kristen Stewart's princess, in SWatH, seems the closest to a "warrior princess" type, but all three heroines are shown wielding a weapon (double-bladed sword, epee or foil, and bow and arrow, respectively).

Out of the three I'm the most excited for Pixar's movie-- and how could I not be? They don't just make films, they craft them.  And I'm pretty sure this is the first time seeing a main character who is a ginger and has massive amounts of enviably voluminous and curly hair.  I don't know if the source material has the character thus coiffed, but it's kinda gutsy that they didn't just go with the typical long and flowy route with this princess.  I can't think of a single Disney princess with curly hair (The Princess and the Frog's Maddie sorta had some texture in her hair but she's a frog for half the movie, so I'm not counting her).  I can only imagine how difficult it was to animate Merida's hair.  Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about this movie for a lot of reasons, but...hair! My goodness! So cool.

Anyway some other recent examples of offbeat princesses:
- Hanna (2011).  Okay, so the titular character is not a real princess, has no royal blood, but this film is very much a fairy tale, complete with mystical powers, a bloodthirsty witch, betrayal...it's like Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz, and even makes overt references to the brothers Grimm.  Hanna has the "skin as white as snow" part down, and maybe even a vengeful mother...

- Tangled (2010?) I haven't seen this, but I know it's a Rapunzel story and that the princess wields a mighty frying pan as her weapon.  Definitely offbeat.

- Black Swan (2010).  Okay, "offbeat" isn't the optimal word to describe Natalie Portman's character; "tortured" would be closer.  One could say that she's sheltered and coddle in the way that a little princess might be, the way that Disney's Princess Jasmine was (minus the pet tiger, bumbling father, lecherous vizier, etc.) 

I'm of two minds about this phenomenon, regarding the three movies from the beginning of this post.  On the one hand, these girls are all white/European and based off western European tales, and they're all, well, princesses.  There are equally interesting and filmable stories about women and girls in non-European folk and fairy tales who are not born of royal blood. But on the other hand, these are all princesses who fight, who aren't just dainty damsels in distress, and they challenge gender expectations as royalty and as young women.  And I'm a sucker for this kind of story, and genuinely look forward to watching all three movies.

Stream of consciousness: embarazada

A cognate is a word that sounds the same and has the same meaning in different languages.  Examples: in Spanish the words medicina, dormitorio, chocolate mean medicine, dormitory/room, and chocolate in English, respectively.  But, I think I've mentioned before, there are false cognates, or words that sound or seem the same but don't directly translate.  One case that's brought up often and used to comic effect is the Spanish word embarazada.  You would think that it means "embarassed", right? Wrong: it means 'pregnant'.  Can you imagine the hilarious accidental situations in which a novice Spanish speaker might misuse this false cognate?

But why is it so?  Why does the Spanish word for "pregnant" sound like the English word for "deeply ashamed"?  For generations, eons, woman's purpose in life was to procreate (after having been legally married, of course); it would only make sense that showing signs of pregnancy would be cause for happy emotions and celebrations, and not shame...unless it were an "illigitimate"/"bastard"/"unexpected" birth.  That's the explanation I can think of right now.  Today we see female celebrities dressed very stylishly throughout pregnancy, showing off the progress of their baby bump.  There's even a show called "Pregnant in Heels" that, to my knowledge, features a pregnancy concierge to help an expecting mother look fabulous throughout her term.  But it's only been recently that the pregnant woman was seen as beautiful or remotely sexy.  There's a lot of negativity directed at female bodies in general.

Take the word "hysteria" too.  Another word with the same suffix: hysterectomy, which is the surgical removal of the uterus.  Coincidence? No; I think it was in Victorian times that it was thought that the womb/uterus floated around a woman's body, and that this movement made a woman so disturbed that she was hysterical, experiencing hysteria.  Recently the trailer for a movie of the same name came up, and I have high hopes for it.  Not a serious-face period drama, but that's what makes it enticing, to me: it's a comedy-- a sex comedy at that-- which is set in a traditionally stuffy time period, and it focuses on an...interesting subject matter.

If the world were an enormous nudist colony...

I've never visited a clothing-optional beach, nor have I ever been to a nudist colony/community.  I'd just like to take this time to consider what it would be like if everyone in the entire world were made to not wear clothing.  Before I continue I want to acknowledge the obvious and/or silly problems with this scenario:
1) it's not warm enough everywhere to merit going about without clothing.
2) it's not practical/sanitary to go about without clothing, especially when performing certain tasks such as operating machinery or cooking/baking or jogging, etc.
3) you can't make everyone go clothesless.  And Fashion Industry Is Powerful.

Having gotten those three broad categories of concern out of the way, here are some of the hypothetical beneefits of my aforementioned scenario:
1) there would be less sexual harassment and rape (the reasoning behind this is that, in many instances, rapists claim that the person/people they raped were "asking for it" due to the way s/he dressed)
2) pornography, as commonly defined today, wouldn't exist
3) there would be more body acceptance and acknowledgement of what the human anatomy looks like without any non-surgical enhancement
4) the world would be more conscious/concerned about cleanliness
5) you get the point?

This is where I would try to make some transition into the argument for letting women walk around topless, just as men are allowed to walk about in public without shirts on.  But that is a topic for another day.  And this topic would easily transition to the tangentially related issue of bras; alas, a subject for yet another separate post.

My summer sandwich

I bled for this sandwich.  While I was shredding the carrots with a mandolin, the base of my thumb got snagged on the teeth.  Three days later I still have five little parallel marks to commemorate one darn tasty lunch.

Ingredients:

Two slices of bread, toasted if you plan to eat it later, untoasted if you plan to eat it immediately after sandwich is constructed

One medium-sized carrot, shredded

3 tablespoons hommus (my favorite kind is garlic hommus)

One large leaf of Romaine lettuce, cut in half

3 tablespoons of your favorite shredded cheese (I think I used a pizza blend with mozzerella and asiago and two other ones I can’t remember)

Optional: one teaspoon of your favorite mustard

1. Spread a thin layer of hommus on each slice of bread (1.5 tablespoons on each side)
2. Pat the shredded carrot onto one slice
3. Put the lettuce on the freshly-carroted slice
4. Pat the shredded cheese onto the other slice
5. Drizzle mustard over that
6. Sprinkle the green onion over that
7. Unite the two slices of bread

Eat sandwich when ready.

On "Beauty and the Beast"

Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" was my favorite Disney princess movie while I was growing up.  Now, Pocahontas, Mulan, and "The Princess and the Frog" heroine Maddie are up there as well.  It's kind of depressing to think about, though, considering how dark that movie is and the implications of the turn of events at the end:
1.  Belle says to the Beast (whose name, Adam, is never revealed in the film) that she loves him
2.  The rose is deflowered with the last petal floating magically down to the table
3.  The Beast (animal, base) becomes a Man (noble, gentle but strong)

Not to mention that this version justifies domestic violence in framing the female protagonist as the one who sees beyond the masculine one's abuse and endures it, ultimately transforming him through her love and patience and other feminine virtues.

There are many iterations of this story, both in text and film.  I have seen and read many of them:
- Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête (1946)
- Panna a nevtor (1981) from Czechoslovakia
- Cannon Movie Tales' musical version (1987) starring John Savage and Rebecca De Mornay
- Faerie Tale Theatre's Beauty and the Beast episode (1984) starring Klaus Kinski and Susan Sarandon
- the first season of the CBS drama Beauty and the Beast (1987) with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton
- of course, the Disney version from 1991 (but not any of the sequels or spin-off straight-to-VHS movies)
- haven't seen it but I have the soundtrack of the Broadway musical version of the Disney version
- the Hellboy movies, with Ron Perlman, include a bit of "Beauty and the Beast" undertones
- ...as do werewolf stories (and probably vampire ones too, but I don't want to get into that)
- any sitcom with a hot wife and schlubby/not conventionally attractive husband counts as an addition to this list

I've felt conflicted about my passion for this story, but I've come to accept it for what it is-- patriarchal teachings to pubescent females-- and can't help but appreciate the storytelling and, well, the romance of it all. Oh, I'll have to watch some of those movies again and write a post in response to each one; there's just so much for me to analyze.

thoughts on movie violence...

It's hard to say which I think is less bad: stylized violence or realistic violence.  I'm going to refer to the Kill Bill  films as examples of stylized violence and The Departed as one that has violence that is over the top but still too realistic for me to call it stylized.  (Spoiler alert for the movies).  Stylized violence exists for the audience to enjoy, where the Bad Guys and Good Guys are clearly delineated.  I shied away from watching any Tarantino film for a while because I heard about how violent they were, yet when I finally got around to watching one I found out that I liked them.  The story-telling and dialogue are whip-smart, but also the violence is stylized and unrealistic so I could sort of distance myself and remind myself that it was just a movie I was watching.  On the other hand you have “The Departed”, which is very much set in the real world, where people get beaten up and shown to be in pain, real pain.  The violence is over the top because the situations are over the top, and the violence serves to emphasize just how badass and cold-blooded the characters can get.  What’s better: hand to hand violence or gun violence?  I could argue that the former is better because it is more real, but then the latter evens the field a little more; you don’t have to be physically fit to shoot someone.  But “The Departed” has a lot of non-gun violence in it as well.  At the bottom of it, these are action movies—but with great dialogue!  In horror movies the whole point is to shock or gross out the audience with stylized violence. 

I can’t tolerate horror movies.  I know that the kind of violence portrayed in these movies is also very stylized and unrealistic, but I don’t get anything out of watching people get tortured and scream in pain.  That kind of violence isn’t warranted, to me; oftentimes it’s senseless killing and there’s nothing that smart or thought-provoking about it...

Blood, food, and spring.

I signed up for an appointment to donate blood at a local blood drive.  It'll be my fourth time.  My blood type is O-positive, so I'm almost a universal donor; my blood can be used for any (Rh) positive blood type.  I'm a giver-- it's in my blood! Aha-ha-ha... but really, O-positive blood isn't terribly uncommon.  I think that about 90% percent of people of Asian descent are O-positive, or at least have Rh-positive blood.  I didn't do any internet research on that stat, it's purely from the annals of my memory from Anatomy and Physiology II.

I know that one day of carefully monitoring my food intake won't make a big difference in my bloodwork, but still I made a point to eat iron-rich foods.  Same with vitamin C, because it helps with iron absorption.  I had one really delicious orange today, a California navel; I prefer the tarter Florida oranges but didn't any around.  As much as I enjoyed it, I'm looking forward to the summer and getting to eat local produce.

It helps that the weather has gotten significantly warmer in the last week.  With tomorrow's forecast indicating that the mercury'll go up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, it seems that this spring will quickly give way to summer.  I've been thinking a lot about this and realized that I hate spring because it's the opposite of fall.  Autumn is my favorite season, when the atmosphere is golden-tinged and sparkling and crisp like apple cider.  It's always signaled a new (school) year, new beginnings, a cool reprieve from summer.  Spring is humid, rainy and more conflicted, like the preteen who awkwardly tries to metamorphize into a self-assured person.  Spring evokes a pastel palette and seasonal allergies, tormenting students as if to say "your summer vacation will NEVER arrive if you can't outlast ME, cackle cackle".

In all fairness, I did actually enjoy the weather today.  The morning was humid and the outlook wasn't hopeful, but in the afternoon the sun broke out and all was well.  On my walk back home I stopped to rest under a tree and have a lie down on my coat (the grass was still a little damp).  I enjoyed a zephyr, a pleasant spring breeze that didn't compete too much with the warmth from the sun.  To think, that light traveled for eight minutes just so we could enjoy it, and I could bask in it, just for a moment.

I'll bring that memory back to mind tomorrow for when that enormous needle goes into one of the veins in my left arm.  Like I said before, I've done this three times before and know what to expect in terms of discomfort. But that needle doesn't get any smaller.

Scar stories: Knuckles

It happened on my wedding day.  I was to marry my Beloved, and his name was Kevin. He was planning on marrying his best friend, Avery, but I asked him first.  The ceremony was short and quaint, as it took place during recess and there were countless other activities to fit into that short period of time.  After we got married I decided that we had to be together forever, or until the end of recess, whichever one came first.  He shrugged, then ran off to where the other boys were congregated around a sewage drain and throwing sticks and rocks into it.  In my hurry I tripped and my left side beared most of the impact.  A jagged line of blood ran along the knuckles of my middle, ring and pinky fingers.  Instantly I was bawling and a teacher's aide rushed over to see what had happened; my husband only briefly looked up before resuming his work.  I decided then that the marriage was off and I would never wed again.

Re-Lent?

The Korean sausage that my mother served for lunch on Sunday isn't really a sausage, strictly speaking.  Its casing was not made of animal intestine and contained no meat but was stuffed with noodles and vegetables.  So, technically, as a vegetarian it would be okay for me to eat it, right? Well there's one thing ingredient I left out: 

Hey! It must be the mon-nay!

image source

Sometime last week on the Yahoo! front page an article appeared with pictures of a younger Amy Poehler dressed as a candy stripper. She went on "Jimmy Kimmel Live! and explained that when she was in her 20s she would do things like give blood or pose for picture frame photo-inserts to earn some extra money. This got me thinking of my own experiences of things I've done to earn money. Mostly I've participated in lots of research studies. I started the summer after my first year in college and just got back from one this morning (not the same study). A sampling of my experiences:

• once I wore an EEG net (see below) to monitor my brain activity and also had to spit into pipettes at various intervals while I sat in front of a computer and played stressful games. It lasted 3 hours.

image source

• I participated in a hearing study and came in twice a week for six weeks to wear headphones listen to various beeps and levels of white noise to compare my results to those of individuals with severe hearing loss
• I had six electrodes taped and glued to my face, scalp and heart to monitor my brain waves, muscle movement and heart rate for a sleep study. After taking a memory test on the computer I took a nap for 2 hours, watched a movie, then re-took the test. The whole thing took about 6 hours.
• I gave blood (about 1/3 the amount drawn for blood drives) and filled out questionnares on medical history and diet.
• I wore a heart-rate monitoring vest while I watched the pilot for the NBC drama "Journeyman" before it aired, had my eye movements tracked, and filled out surveys about my reactions and general TV habits. (I mildly enjoyed the pilot but was jealous when I found out that the other study group got to see the pilot for "Chuck".)

My favorite experience would either be that last one or the sleep study. I've participated in sleep studies a few times, none of which required me to sleep in the facility overnight. I like the fact that I've gotten paid to nap and watch movies or TV shows-- that was how I got to see "Say Anything" and a good chunk of the fourth season of "Seinfeld". It stinks, though, having to wash the electrode-paste out of my hair, but the pros outweigh the cons. Generally I'm able to look past those nuisances and keep in mind the bottom line: I'm getting paid.