Happy Memorial Day!

Okay, this is probably completely old news, but I never professed to be a history buff--especially war history. But I wanted to look at a different side of Memorial Day, without getting into the politics of the rights or wrongs of war.

Obviously, World War II had its share of badass ladies: women who went to work and took on what were then (and now, really) considered "men's jobs" to help with the war effort and make some extra money. But I hadn't, until this morning when my mom told me about a story she'd seen on the Today show, been aware of the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) of WWII.

While the MSNBC article says that "Their mission was to fly noncombat missions to free up male pilots to fly overseas," 38 of these women ended up being killed in service. Despite this, they received almost no recognition and weren't even considered veterans until 1977. These women "weren't considered 'real' military pilots. No flags were draped over their coffins when they died on duty. And when their service ended, they had to pay their own bus fare home."

They were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in March 2010. WASP pilot Ty Hughes Killen remarked, "I really don't care for publicity but what I really do care about is the 900 or more that are already dead and gone and have not had the cognizance and recognition that I feel they should have for their families."

So when you go about your Memorial Day festivities, I hope you'll take a moment to recognize and reflect on those war heroes who tend to go unsung and unrecognized, and realize that there are a lot more people involved in war than we often see.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Okay no, I'm not actually talking about the movie.

Lately, I've been on this big "happiness" kick--self-help books, meditation, the whole thing. It may seem silly, but I do have some emotional issues. I've been known to fly off the handle at the least provocation; any unpleasant surprises, and I go nuts. Which, needless to say, isn't good. Unnecessary stress over stupid things is definitely unhealthy, and some things really just aren't worth taking too seriously.

So one of the books I've read recently is the Dalai Lama's The Art of Happiness. I have a lot of respect for the Dalai Lama, and I like that his advice doesn't focus on religion. But I had a hard time with this book, which I believe is mostly my fault. I found myself misunderstanding a lot of his points at first, and jumped to conclusions before he had finished a thought. It sometimes seemed as if a lot of what he was saying was very passive--that we should submit to oppression, have compassion for our enemies, see the good in every situation. But reading further, it became apparent that while he was saying these things to an extent, when it comes to the big things, he was clear that people should do whatever was necessary for their own protection if they are threatened with real harm. The Dalai Lama's own life illustrates that he is not at all passive. While he advises us to remain happy and see the good in just about every situation, that doesn't mean that we can't still recognize the bad and work to make it better. The Dalai Lama himself has done phenomenal work advocating for world peace, human rights, and environmental stewardship.

I'm also in the process of reading Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, which by the title, sounds like the perfect book for me. Unfortunately, I'm having many of the same problems with it as I had with The Art of Happiness. The subtitle of the book, "and it's all small stuff" is wildly offensive to me, and I wish it hadn't been included. Because Carlson is not actually saying that war, genocide, and poverty are "small stuff," but the subtitle sure as hell makes it sound as if he is. Much of Carlson's advice is similar to the Dalai Lama's, but if you only read the chapter titles and don't pay much attention to the actual content of the chapters (there are 100 chapters, each one devoted to a different piece of advice), it's easy to believe that the author really doesn't think there are any "big" issues. Some of his advice includes, "Let Others Be 'Right' Most of the Time" (12), "Surrender to the Fact that Life Isn't Fair" (17), "Choose Being Kind over Being Right" (37), "When in Doubt about Whose Turn It Is to Take Out the Trash, Go Ahead and Take It Out" (40), and "Think of What You Have Instead of What You Want" (66). I could see some of this advice having unintended consequences.

For example, taking out the trash yourself is all well and good, but what if it's something like finding yourself doing all of the housework even though both you and your husband have full-time jobs? Should you do anything to rectify the situation or simply continue doing all of the housework, possibly to the detriment of your physical and emotional health? Does it extend to people taking advantage of you? My point is, just because it's small stuff now, doesn't mean it can't turn into bigger stuff, which probably should've been nipped in the bud when it was still small.

Also, accepting that life isn't fair and being grateful for what you have instead of thinking about what you want has implications akin to anti-feminists telling women to appreciate the strides they've already made and STFU essentially. The bad stuff just isn't as important as the good stuff so there's no need to get all worked up about it.

But is not being constantly "happy" really that bad? In a recent article, Rebecca Traister takes issue with the cultural idea that people are supposed to be happy. She claims that unhappiness can potentially have very positive effects,

Unhappiness is propellant; disappointment and dismay prompt us to work for a better grade, to ask for a promotion or seek a new job, to search for a more affordable or comfortable abode, to go out at night and meet someone new, to try to get pregnant or decide not to have another kid. More specifically, the elements of life that make us sad or upset or bored show us what we do not want; they give shape and specificity to what it is we do want and perhaps the motivation to work toward it. That which leaves us empty prompts us to find what we want to fill us up, whether it results in picking up a phone to talk to a friend or picking up and moving to Bali.

In archetypal American rags-to-riches stories, the dissatisfactions of poverty and degradation are what provoke heroes to make their giant forward leaps. In my far more privileged experience, fear, humiliation and error provided me with the fuel, the desire and the ambition to move away from where I was and toward something else, something that quite often turned out to be better. For that transformative power, I give unhappiness a lot of credit.

I once had a therapist who, overall, was completely wonderful, but in hindsight I do remember him saying something that I now think is completely wrong. He asked me, "If you stop worrying about all this political stuff, what really happens? Does the world end?" My answer now would be, "Nothing would happen, which is actually a big fucking problem." If everyone stopped worrying about all the political stuff, nothing would ever change. Or chances are, the bad people would feel validated and things would be worse. Like, I know that the sexist characterization of Amy Pond on Doctor Whomay not seem like a big deal, but it is a reflection of a larger cultural problem of denying women agency over their sexuality/bodies/lives. Ignoring small instances of sexism, even on tv, definitely doesn't help the problem, and, best case scenario allows the status quo to remain in place. Worst case scenario, it gives the perpetrators of the problem a free pass to continue and even escalate their actions.

So while I plan to continue working on my emotional issues and trying to be a less stressed, even a happier person, I think I'll set aside some of my personal comfort and reject the notion that "it's a small stuff." And while I'm worrying about the bit stuff, I think I'll continue to "sweat the small stuff" if it means that any miniscule part of this world could potentially change for the better.

ETA: Sorry about the weird formatting issues in this one. I can't seem to fix it, nor do I know what happened.

Amy's Choice

Okay, this blog is (probably) not going to be all Doctor Who all the time, but it is my favorite show, and many of these episodes have really interesting elements to them that, being obsessive, I can’t just ignore.

So I just finished watching the newest episode “Amy’s Choice,” and I currently have a lot of half-formed ideas and opinions that I will now foist upon the world—some of which may come into play later on in the season.

As a whole, the episode was really good—miles better than “Vampires of Venice.” The monsters were cool, the conclusion was really emotional and dramatic, and it proved what we’ve all known for some time: old people are terrifying.

I had high hopes for the episode from just the title. “Amy’s Choice” led me to think that Amy would be getting back some of the agency that she lost last week, and it worked out that way, to an extent. In the episode, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory are confronted with two dangerous situations in two different realities—one of which they are told is a dream and one of which is the real universe—and it becomes Amy’s job to choose which one is which. The reason for this is not entirely clear. The episode’s villain of the week, the “Dream Lord” claims that it’s because the Doctor and Rory are “Amy’s men,” and will abide by whatever she chooses. Upon reflection, maybe it’s more because the reality of the TARDIS flying into the cold star is clearly the Doctor’s world while the reality of the tiny village and pregnant Amy is clearly Rory’s world, and Amy is the one stuck in the middle of the two?

Anyway, so Amy finally chooses, but only after Rory dies in the tiny village reality and she decides that she doesn’t want to live without him. Although, if the Doctor had been the one to die in the tiny village reality, I feel like Amy would have done the same thing. Basically after anyone died in either reality, I would expect the other two to follow suit, and prove that the other reality was the real one, so the tension was sort of gone after that moment. I'm no television writer, but I think I would rather that Amy were forced to choose without Rory dying. The choice was too easy whether she was in love with him or not, especially since Amy didn’t seem too keen on Rory’s reality anyway, and only pretended to like it because she didn't want to hurt Rory's feelings. I wish she could have confronted Rory about what she really wanted—because it’s possibly to love Rory and yet not necessarily want to live an ultra-quiet life staying home and nine months pregnant and cooking and living with a husband who makes such unfortunate hairstyle choices. Wanting Rory and a life of adventure don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Then there’s the Doctor. I started the season very ambivalent about him, but since then, I’ve started to see real differences between him and David Tennant. In “Flesh and Stone,” particularly, he showed a very tender side with Amy. In “Vampires of Venice,” though, he denied Amy’s agency by insisting that Amy loved Rory. Now, "Amy's Choice" has the Doctor competing with Rory for Amy’s affections in a way sort of reminiscent of Mickey and Nine, but in a more annoying way, especially in light of last week. There is a wonderful moment, though, when Amy decides to kill herself in Rory’s reality, and the Doctor completely accepts her decision and calmly, trustingly, gets in the car beside her.

In this ep, though, it seems that the Doctor has mostly lost his mojo. He just doesn’t seem to do a whole lot. And maybe it’s his youth (visually speaking), but Amy and Rory, as companions, seem to have very little respect for him, which is, on one hand, good that they’re not treating him like an all-powerful god who’s so much better than them, but also a bit disturbing. Furthermore, we find out that the Dream Lord was actually the Doctor’s dark side made manifest (or something), which is a cool idea, but, judging from the dialogue in most of the scenes with hero and villain together, it seems that this Doctor is somehow very, very self-conscious. Actually more than that: he's self-loathing. And again, while I don’t want him cocky, I also don’t want him always doubting himself. It just doesn’t seem very “Doctor-ish” to me.

Karen Gillan: New Companion

*This post contains spoilers through "Vampires of Venice*

Is it possible to be completely in love with a tv character, and yet still hate the way she's written?

I guess I should have seen this coming. I had heard that people all over the internet hate Amy Pond, but everyone seemed to hate Rose, too, and she's my eternal beloved. Maybe it's because she's so pretty (I never said I wasn't shallow)?

I loved the introduction to the character in "The 11th Hour." She was an awesome little girl who didn't seem to have any functional adults in her life, and a strange man entered her house and promised he'd be back in five minutes. She waited twelve years. I like that that seems to've fucked her up a little bit--I also like my characters damaged, I guess.

Anyway, though I love the initial premise of the character, I don't care for how she's been written so far. I've only seen through "Vampires of Venice" so far. We know that when Amy agreed to go with the Doctor on his adventures, she was essentially running away from her marriage to... not the good looking one, but "the other one." The very end of "Flesh and Stone" saw her rejecting her fiance altogether in favor of an alien who she has essentially loved since she was eight years old. This is all well and good, except for how the show itself is treating it.

The Doctor reacts badly to Amy's advances, which is to be expected from the character, since the writers have resisted giving him a romantic interest all along. But he doesn't just reject her, he rejects her sexual agency altogether, insisting that she isn't in her right mind and doesn't know what she's doing. In "Vampires of Venice," the Doctor crashes Rory's bachelor party in order to take Rory on one of their adventures (a "date"), claiming that this will allow Amy to fall back in love with Rory after they experience the thrill of danger together. And it works. Amy realizes that she is still in love with Rory, the Doctor was absolutely right and totally knows what's best for her. It's disappointing because it implies that Amy (and possibly all women) are flighty creatures who don't really know what they want: their preferences change with the wind. What they really need is a man to interpret their mysterious fickleness, and point them back in the right direction.

This is especially difficult for me, because I've always thought of this new series of Doctor Who as fairly feminist under Russell T. Davies' reign, and this is just another step in the wrong direction for this season in my opinion.

Intro to the blog

Intro to the blog

Hi all!

I don't know if anyone is actually going to read this, but I wanted to start this blog as a way to sort out some of the mostly pop culture-related madness going on in my head.

So here's a little intro to me: I recently received an M.A. in English with a focus on pop culture and women's studies. I basically schedule my life around tv and movies, and am currently rediscovering my love of books after the soul-crushing hell that was grad school. I have a rich fantasy life, filled with fake people largely gleaned from my pop culture intake. My current fake boyfriend is Tony Stark.

I plan to fill this blog with mostly movie, tv, and book reviews and random musings. Don't expect much method to the madness--I'll just post on whatever interests me on a current day. Also, you should know that I am an ardent feminist, and many of my thoughts will come through that lens. If you don't like it, tough. Feel free to leave polite comments, but I will not tolerate abuse.

Thanks!