Friday, June 5, 2009

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Who Has Written a Piece About Race And Gender In "Obsessed?" In JUNE?

That would be me, my friends! I have been planning it forever, I have been holding off - as per suggestion - until its UK debut, I have had my spot uncomfortably stolen by Elizabeth Wurtzel (WURTZEL WILL HAVE HER REVENGE, I tell you; never cross that woman, not even in Gchat format) and now, NOW, the Obsessed piece is upon you! And upon the Guardian's Comment is Free!

What can Beyonce teach us about female aggression? This is a question I do not often have cause to ask. Regardless, I am asking it today. For, after a nasty couple of weeks in which the coverage of women's issues has been dominated by news of conflict between women (the classy among us refer to it as "catfighting"), I found myself with a free afternoon, a few dollars of spending money and (naturally enough) a ticket to Ms Knowles's latest motion picture event, Obsessed.

Obsessed, in case you haven't heard, is a movie whose marketing platform (and vaguely shocking US box-office success) is based almost entirely on the promise that, should you elect to view it, you will get to see Beyonce beat some other woman up.

That woman is Ali Larter, an actress I have come to admire for her commitment to appearing exclusively in terrible, campy B-movies. Final Destination, Resident Evil: Extinction, Varsity Blues – these are Larter's bread and butter. "This will not be a high-quality film," Larter seems to convey with her presence in a movie. "And, to be honest, is that what you wanted? Probably not! If you did, you would not have purchased a ticket for a movie starring me."

Go read the rest of it. Yell at me a little! For shockingly, there are not so many comments on the piece. CiF readers: I neeeeeeeeeed your yelling, like the sunshine. Everybody's got to yell, sometimes!

9 comments:

  1. I am always reassured by how quickly the ballache surfaces in comments at CiF, particularly, when the writer is a woman.

    As usual, they prove your point almost as well as your excellent essay.

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  2. Well, since you asked:

    JESAYS SADY, YOU TOTALLY ROCK!

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  3. "Derek liked it- so much, in fact, that he was compelled to put a ring on it."

    I DIED OF LAUGHTER when I read this line.

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  4. Man, that guy with the drinking and the ranting was really something else. Like whoa. Also, the one who told you to read reviews before you see movies so as to avoid seeing ones you wouldn't like? Hilarious.

    Also, good review. Well done. A+.

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  5. This comment is priceless:
    "Perhaps you should read reviews of films prior to going to them; you could then avoid the ones that you won't like/will be offended by. Novel idea I know."
    YOU are not allowed to write reviews! You must read reviews by these unspecified other people that are allowed to write reviews!

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  6. I was going to post a comment here, but I posted one there instead.

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  7. Say I'm a white dude and i enjoy my privilege and I don't want to think about its ramifications. So I'm just surfing around the net and I come across an article and I notice that it's written by a lady. I do a cursory skim and I notice the lady's using words like "misogynist" and "patriarchal" and "exploitation." This is the whole extent to which I consider the content of the article before I'm compelled to tell the lady-writer, "SHUT UP! shut up shut up shut up! It's totally normal for people (meaning ME!) to want to see hawt chicks scratch each other's eyes out and women reduced to bronze age stereotypes to validate my prejudices, so SHUT UP!!!" And that's how those comment threads happen.

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  8. Sady, Sady, she's our girl
    Movies she hates make me hurl!

    Yaaaaaaaayyyyyyy, SADY!

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  9. Hi,

    Great essay i a also agree with your points Thanks for sharing...

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