Things

[slemslempike]

I thought that this post was interesting. It's a response to a post at Shakesville (that I haven't read), about whether male privilege can be said to matter within all-male groups. Short, but interesting.

The next point isn't exactly related, but is about men sort of, which is a rare enough topic in my journal that it links for me. I was watching a repeat of Outnumbered the other day, which is one where the couple next door are arguing, they hear a bang and think that the woman has been assaulted, go round and she says she's fine. The next day the police come round, and reveal that actually the woman assaulted the man.

The situation is basically there for one joke, which is (paraphrased) that she hit him with a frying pan, quite common, used not to be such a problem, but it's all le creuset around here now. Which I think I would find a very funny joke in a different programme, but doesn't gel with Outnumbered. I think it's dismissive of domestic violence, assuming that women aren't ever violent, and that if they are then they aren't able to do any "real" damange.

And I like this poem: pick-up lines for feminists, which I saw linked in Bitch's feminist joke contest. (Sadly they have not yet got many good comments - I think the joke about waves is particularly poor, but I do like the masturbating one.) Anyone who says this:

your feet must be tired.
because you have been
running through my
mind and struggling
against the repressive
gender roles
that we have been
socialized into
all day.

to me is pretty much guaranteed a patriarchy-subverting consensual sexual encounter of a mutually satisfying nature to be determined through a fair and transparent system of democratic decision-making.

I went to the theatre in Manchester. On Friday I went to see They Only Come at Night with notmarcie. This was a promenade experience thing - we were guests at a launch for a new graphic novel. It was supposed to be scary, and ...it wasn't. I don't know quite what they were going for. The early bits were quite funny, you had a wristband and needed to write your blood group on it, and if you didn't know you could go and get tested from a man with a joystick who then started doing mass readings based on sparkliness of jewellery, if you were left-handed and what your ears looked like. There was a security man with an earpiece who kept sternly saying that you must at all times make sure that you could see. (Would have been more helpful if he had told TALL people not to stand in front of SHORT people.) Anyway. Then it started to get more sinister, with accidental ominous messages on the tannoy, and darkness. Milo, the artist came and made a speech, and then he was interrupted by a man with no legs (I don't know if we were told his name - hereafter Bob) who came down a rope, took over the place and locked everything down. Then a large screen swivelled round to reveal some sort of platform contraption, which Bob said meant that Milo "knew they were coming". And then it started to drag a bit. Early on there were several suspense-building things - a woman taken out and tannoy messages that she was being taken "to the water", the shades coming down so that we couldn't see the water, sudden loss of light and loss of video control. But it didn't go anywhere with that, and by the time we were coralled into a pit and given salt to ward off the vampires, people were thoroughly unscared. When the lights went out completely there was some of the most sarcastic screaming I've ever heard. Then they fought vampires, but we couldn't really see what was going on as it was down the other end. The general mood at the end was that it was a great idea poorly executed.

Today I went to see The Miser at the Royal Exchange, which was a proper PLAY, for which I could SIT DOWN. (I have been having problems with my knees, so I was very grateful for this.) It was very very funny indeed, and lovely staging. The theatre is in the round (well, in the heptagon), and every performance I've been to there I've never felt that I wasn't seeing a fair share no matter where I sat. The set and cast where white-washed, all flecks of paint everywhere and tattered clothing for the Miser and his children, and very physical. This is what's on there next, and I'm going to try to get to. (Someone at the Royal Exchange is very emphatic and likes their caps - Punk Rock is "URGENT and SHATTERING", John Osborne's The Entertainer is "SCATHING and SCINTILLATING" and Blithe Spirit will apparently be both "HILARIOUS and HAIR-RAISING".