Saturday, October 26, 2013

50 Shades of... wait, they're making a movie?!?

A few months ago, someone told me that 50 Shades of Grey was being made into a movie. The whole idea seemed so utterly ridiculous that I thought that they were joking. Alas, I was mistaken.

Google Trends can be really interesting to look at sometimes (it's also helpful for when I want to peek out from the rock I live under and check out the latest political scandal). I looked at it a few days ago, and was somewhat confused as to why '50 shades of gray' was the most searched topic that day. Then I looked at the attached article. 


I did a bit of a double take.

How the hell are they going to made 50 Shades of Grey into a movie? It's book porn erotic literature. And it's poorly written book porn erotic literature at that. How did the actors even audition? Did they just walk into a room and take off their pants?

While I could make a list about 20 pages long about all the reasons this book is awful, there's one big thing about it that confuses me.

Why are so many women suddenly attracted to overly-controlling and somewhat creepy fictional men? Double points if they have serious anger issues and are all around jerks! First, there was Edward Cullen from Twilight. Just like what seems like every other girl on the planet, I went through the Twilight phase. Oh, how I swooned when Edward revealed that he had been climbing through Bella's window to watch her sleep for the past 3 months. How I sighed when he told her how desperately he wanted to slaughter her, how her blood smelled like sweet ambrosia to his cold, white, and godlike nose.  

And now there's Christian Grey. I'm not going to go into too much detail, partly because I only managed to skim about 5 pages of the book before I started laughing, and partly because majority of his character development happens during sex scenes. But just by reading the back of the book, you can tell he's going to be another Edward Cullen.


Tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control? Sounds like my kind of man!




Monday, October 21, 2013

Much Ado About Chess (which is apparently misogynistic by the way)

Disclaimer: This post isn't intended to offend anyone in any way.  It's a bit of a satire, really.

There's no denying that sexism is a very real issue. Even today, women make 77 cents for every dollar that men make. It's utterly ingrained in our society, and I don't exactly see it ceasing to become an issue anytime soon. That said, some people seriously need to stop making everything an issue of gender.

I was idly browsing tumblr when I found this charming little text post:

You can see the rest of her rant here
According to vag-of-honor (which is a lovely username, by the way), chess is oppressive to women. The objective of the game is clearly to reinforce the idea that women are considered less than men. Never mind that the queen is pretty much the most powerful piece on the board! Its innability to jump over other pieces proves that women aren't allowed to advance in society! WE ARE BEING REPRESSED BY THE PATRIARCHY!!!!!!

That's nice and all. Really, it is. But it doesn't make any sense. Women are weak? Misogony! Women are strong? Misogony! The National Chess Federation still supports chess? Misogony! Feminism isn't the issue. Feminism is awesome. The issue is people that take it way too far, making a mockery of the actual cause. It's eerily reminiscent of a Monty Python scene.

Let's say that vag-of-honor's interpretation of the misogynistic nature of chess is 100% accurate. So what now? Is the next step to ban the game? Should we ban Jenga next?