On HU
Featured Archive Post: Adam Stephanides begs you not to rearrange the manga.
A commenter named Alexander on why as a trans man he loves Sailor Moon.
Me on sequence in Satoshi Kitamura’s children’s book “When Sheep Can’t Sleep”.
Chris Gavaler with an appreciation of Austin Grossman’s novels.
Ng Suat Tong on the selections for the best comics criticism of 2012.
Me on Gay YA and Nora Olsen’s Swans and Klons.
Jacob Canfield on his choices for best comics criticism of 2012.
Me on the advertising campaign for the Yves Saint Laurent Touche Eclat make-up pen, and how capitalism will eat the self (for better or worse.)
Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Atlantic I talk about
— how the recent Gatsby film erased Nick’s gayness.
— David Bowie’s glib, stupid anti-Catholicism.
At Splice Today I talk about
— the great jazz trombonist Bill Harris honking.
— Angelina Jolie, mastectomies and femininity.
—The Julianne Moore rom-com The English Teacher, and how it’s supposed to be set in my hometown.
Other Links
Matthias Wivel on the best comics criticism of 2012.
Mary McCarthy on the joys of embarrassing your kid.
Monika Bartyzel on why the Disney princesses suck.
Tucker Stone urges you not to tighten up your Berlatskys.
Elissa Strauss provides a manifesto for lazy birthing.
A house down the street from where I grew up. Significantly less chic than any of the houses in the rom-com The English Teacher
I find the whole Brave redesign controversy to be one of the more trumped-up reasons for outrage of late. It’s a pretty minimal redesign, making her more in line with the rest of the characters, and specific aspects that people are complaining about (her eyes are bigger! Her hair is less frizzy!) sure seem like nitpicking. I dunno, it really doesn’t seem like a huge deal, and people could stand to chill out.
I have two young daughters (ages 5 and 2) I was initially resistant to the whole princess thing, but my wife pointed out that it’s just a fun imaginative way of playing, like boys and superheroes (or cowboys, or cops and robbers, or whatever is acceptable for the males of the species). And that’s all it is; it’s okay for girls to want to be pretty and imagine dresses and castles and magical adventures and whatnot. The one example in the article that did give me pause was the woman who said her daughter had stopped running and jumping and playing because it wasn’t princess-like, but that just makes me wonder if that kid has ever seen Tangled, or Mulan, or, yes, Brave. Most of the Disney princesses are actually pretty far from passive, and even if the “line” of product that has them all grouped together tends to just put them all in a row of models posing and showing off fancy dresses, the characters themselves have personalities and lives beyond that use of them as decoration (which, again, isn’t any different from T-shirts or bedsheets featuring the lineups of the Avengers or the Justice League). I think getting worked up over all this is quite unnecessary.
By the way, the most recent answer my five year old gave to the question of what she wants to be when she grows up was not the expected “princess”. Instead, she says she wants to be queen. I’ve got a Margaery Tyrell in the making…
I’m actually hoping to write about this a little…I guess I do think Monika’s onto something when she points out that the princess narratives are maybe more interested in pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a princess than other aspects of the marketing are….
Matthew: “I’ve got a Margaery Tyrell in the making…”
She might be thinking more along the lines of Daenerys Targaryen…which might in turn reflect the Disney Princess debate in a more adult fashion.