Lately my little brother is this disaster of inertia and litany of the world's ill. He would sort of like to live on a farm.
And lately I have been watching some great comedy online and reading magazines and papers. On youtube I went from exhaustive Doug Stanhope listening to Doug Stanhope & Alex Jones to Joe Rogan & Alex Jones to Joe Rogan.
Oddly enough, on the phone the other day my friend C said when it came to just getting money and attention for living your life (a concept I've since heard referred to as Nietzschian, but sub "as art" for money and attention - go figure) a reality show was probably the only way. And I replied "Yeah - the idea of ever doing that in any way went out the window for me when I saw Fear Factor." I had certainly forgotten the host of that show's name but it's Joe Rogan. And he's not the owner of Girls Gone Wild Corporation but he "hosted" a video at some point apparently. ("Host" in quotes because what a funny word for that. I can't but hear Joel Grey interject in "Wilkomen" "I... Am... Your... Host.") As did Doug Stanhope who mentions it and mentions it as something stupid he agreed to take the money for. They apparently hosted "The Man Show" together in the nineties. Well all I remember about that is bikini girls on a trampoline. That's all.
Maybe I'm making a short story long (I'm not.) The thing is this: I like Howard Stern. I think Doug Stanhope's fantastic. Joe Rogan is who I'm focused on though. Joe Rogan is a buff asshole. A Boston type. He tells people off like an asshole but he does so when he's technically in the right. As a feminist I really don't have a problem with being an asshole- see, this is actually my point whenever I get to it. One of my favorite blogs turned out to have a post called "That's Your Boyfriend: Joe Rogan": it's a joke because JR taped himself telling off a kid who like clockwork lingers around him when he's naked in the gym locker room and posted it. The idea being that there are hundreds of other ways to intervene in a creepy situation like that that don't involve making it public at all. I'm always willing to be a full disclosure person though and full disclosure- he is hot and he has cool things to say and he's so vain it's sick. That's the kind of thing that gives me a little sexual chemistry rush. So burn me on a pyre.... probably.
Here's what disappoints me:(The World. haha) I give people, male or female, license to be douchebags when they have something to say. I really love to hear intelligent people think uncensored. So Doug Stanhope and Joe Rogan on Alex Jones or Joe Rogan talking about what he experiences on hallucinogens, the epiphanies about consciousness- how dolphins totally have advanced consciousness (I think about this too!!) - that is all great. And all I want, all I want is for anything to come up on a google search of "Joe Rogan Feminism" is within 50 pages to get one thing other than an amateur video of him drunkenly telling off some feminist of renown(? who is she?) who approaches him oddly and has the arrogance only someone who moves in academia can. I mean you can guess what this video is and what are the comments are. "Femisits are morons Joe Rogan Rules he destroyed that bitch" blah blah.
The fact is, Joe Rogan is this cocky jerk who can talk about consciousness and believes as I do that if you were born into another persons circumstances, chemical and otherwise if there is an otherwise, you would be that person. Having heard him say this, I am unwilling to believe that he wouldn't be able off the top of his head to say something kind of interesting... you know, maybe, kind of, about Girls Gone Wild- what I mean is to think a little specifically on having a vagina circumstances. Why not? The discussion isn't there and that's where I'd like to see a change.
In my fantasy there is a woman with a talk show. She is savvy and as funny and interesting as a man. It's ridiculous that I have to qualify that. There are as many of these as each other on both sides. Of course. The woman could be a little arrogant as some (almost all) men who fit this description are or she could be a little more modest, self deprecating. That's a harder line to take. She could be comic and eviscerating but also have a pathos for terrible things and cruel fortune. She could attribute some of that pathos to being a woman. Or she could think otherwise. But she would have a platform to talk about ideas with other iconoclasts and she would bring feminism, bring attitudes about women and their circumstances into the conversation. Can you imagine?
I could write a play of my fantasy and that isn't much of a play. Obviously she has to be strung up or something at the end. That damned requirement of dramatic arc.
I did find a great blog when I was trying to find anybody's thoughts on pop culture and current based feminism. (It's called "Rage against the ManChine)This woman makes great points but she can't stand to watch Bill Maher, for example, given the way he looks right through women sometimes and has stuff to say about masculinity being lost that is so juvenile and offensive. It is profoundly annoying. She's right. Meanwhile, super annoyingly for me, it' a perspective i am willing to listen to sometimes - I'm that hungry for people to be out front with how they treat gender or how they seethe if they seethe, which is no way to go, but I'll even take it. I mean this is part of the inequality that is really rough. I'll listen to men be unfair about women. I want to hear what people really think. And I'm so used to a male perspective that I'll even laugh when a man gets something silly about women right understanding that perspective. I don't see the reverse happening often- or at all really in a public forum - not from heterosexual men.
Take Bill Maher's gripe about "pussification" - one of my favorite things I've heard from Camille Paglia is this great point that car mechanics treat her with an idea in mind somewhere that she's desirable, "feminine" for lack of a better word that makes her life better while her male peers unsex her and that sucks (obvious paraphrase). Right there with her. But she gets to be "divisive" in her community while Maher gets to be a public figure.
The last thing is that all the magazines now are on about porn and it affecting men's libidos. Oh so NOW we can talk about porn affecting us. It isn't "humorless" to obsess when you're a man and your dick is soft for sex!!!!! (p.s. I put "performance"in this post's title because Peggy Orenstien's new book apparently says that that's kind of what younger girls today are going for rather than experiencing sex for pleasure. So that's good that's out there. Thanks Peggy O.)
So now I am just testifying. :-) The porn thing is really interesting and somewhat horrifying. And what I am dreaming of is a forum where aside from asking about Climate Change and The War on Drugs and the hot topics for social onlookers, they're also asked, "So given that you hosted The Man Show, what do you think about that? What do you hear from women? Thoughts?" I know... it's too crazy to imagine.
XOXO
me
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2 comments:
Agree about Joe, but you lost me at feminism. Feminism is as ass-backward as sexism. Most of them never want equality; they want preference. It isn't a coincidence that the entire world is male-dominant, and 90% of all technology is invented by men - males are the dominant gender. That isn't to say that men would do not need women - women are nurturers, more empathic, more civil and in many aspects, more pragmatic. The point is, we're two genders because we need one another.
Also, Bill Maher is a complete moron. He once claimed, on air, that Brazil used Ethanol from Sugar Cane as a fuel source in the 70s. I wouldn't listen to that clown LOL
Challenging the media is critical, both definitions of "critical", ChallengeMedia. I salute you.
This blog post is a very minor, casual you might even say, effort to parse gender role as it's delivered to me, as a member of society, and as I have interpreted it as an adult woman; it is partially what I think I've been "told" about my role, by all that media which your name suggests interests you as well, ChallengeMedia.
I have a significant doubt to your authority about the desires of "most" feminists as you were unable to follow me once I mentioned it as a concept. My wish is that you and people who think like you would try harder. I believe you can!
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