Rachel Moehl

Floored

annette — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

What do you get when you cross a documentary film about the supply and demand frenzy of the Chicago Stock Exchange with a borderline Marxist, feminist film critic? A whole lot of screaming. But that’s really just happening on screen during Floored, the new movie from director James Allen Smith (My Name is Smith), which presents Chicago traders and their associates telling stories of how it felt to be in “the pits” during the “glory days” before the boom of Internet trading and the recession of late, risking their clients’ (and often their own) money. As for the room where I was sitting, there was silence and a yawn. This liberal wasn’t shocked or amused by a showcase of the distinctly capitalist obsession with money.

Smith does everything by the book: he knows who to interview, and where, and how. It’s not enough that the men who used to trade tell us about how much they love money (one couldn’t be away from the floor on vacation with his wife and children because he missed the possibility of acquiring greater wealth too much); we must see their other obsessions: cigarettes, booze, status symbols (Rolex watches, fast cars, large homes, decorative companions such as models and porn stars, etc.) and phallic symbols (guns, golf clubs, cigars, etc.). We must visualize their aggression to understand how their circumstances were; and only then can we understand how even the most successful traders turned out looking and sounding as foul as Mickey Rourke—on his worst day.

“It’s just not any fun… unless you can die,” one former trader says of hunting. But is he really just talking about hunting? He could as easily have said, “It’s just not any fun… unless you can go broke.” These men–and an estimated four women–of the trade are gamblers. They get a high from risking big and winning big. They get off on fear and anticipation. And when they think about winning and losing $100,000, they’re not thinking the things your average 9-to-5er is when he or she goes off to work: how will I pay my utility expenses, my taxes, my mortgage bill; will my health insurance cover my doctors visit/prescription drugs/surgery, etc.? There’s too much loud, naked—and yes, male—aggression in the air to be concerned with anything other than shouting, pushing, waving and clawing one’s way to fortune. The emphasis in stock trading wealth acquisition is less about how much you can spend at the end of the day, and more about how big a pile of cash you’ve managed to hoard.

Of course, there’s a token female trader, who has (fittingly) made a graceful transition to electronic trading. She poetically mentions Darwinism when she talks about the shift. (You’re forced to picture apes foraging for food, grunting and beating their chests before the glow of computer monitors.) And it is, of course, a female psychotherapist who helps the “guys” evolve into electronic traders, even after they feel like they’ve lost their mojo. The Internet has robbed them of the game, many feel. It’s “the most vile invention in the world” that allows “evil” people to cheat at trading. As the film depicts, computer trading is certainly more sedate than open outcry on the floor.

Could the juxtaposition of self-contained, successful women against a pile of sweaty, angry and ultimately unhappy male former stock traders be a little too conveniently giving viewers the sense that men are predisposed to aggressive behavior and ruin in its wake? Yes. But as anyone who’s ever walked by the boys’ locker room after a crushing defeat on the football field knows: boys will be boys. (That is to say: masculine boys will be masculine.)

Floored doesn’t really offer up anything new or exciting, but it does confirm the essentialism we collectively already subscribe to. A better movie, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, confirms the same information, condemns the ethics of unscrupulous capitalists, and keeps you glued to the screen.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, April 13th 2011

My Normal

priyanka — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Irving Schwartz

When artists use the word 'normal' to title their work, they usually mean to imply that they’re going to show us something arguably abnormal. In the case of My Normal, the fringe behavior in question is BDSM: bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism. This kind of sexuality involves one or more people in positions of power, who inflict pain or humiliation on a subordinate or subordinates.

But really, how does that differ from most marriages these days? (Just kidding.)

Writers Renee Garzon and Adam Sales believe they’re doing something revelatory with this story about a lesbian dominatrix who dreams of simultaneously enjoying a monogamous relationship, a lucrative career in BDSM and artistic freedom as a filmmaker; but who can’t seem to juggle all her balls at once. “The various controversial scenes and subjects touched upon in this film were ones Renee and Adam knew well from (firsthand) experience,” the film’s Web site explains. “They were greatly inspired by the underground NYC (New York City) scenes that are often spoken about but rarely seen.”

Unfortunately for them, we have seen these things before in movies and television. Other than a rather shocking description of a client getting a dildo lodged in his anus and subsequently requiring hospitalization, which is spoken of but not seen, there’s very little 'controversial' or 'underground' material exposed. Movies like Looking for Mr. Goodbar and Secretary, as well as television shows like Sex and the City and The L Word have taken us here before.

And it is highly problematic for a movie, which by its very nature occupies a visual medium, to spend more time talking about allegedly abnormal behavior instead of showing it. (Not that I’m clamoring for a glimpse at a dildo-obstructed anus…) The film is dialogue-driven and uses very little cinematic language to tell its story, which is at best contrived and at worst insincere. Actor interactions begin with lines about back story rather than words of familiarity, the kinds of things people who see each other every day say to one another naturally. Amateurish direction and editing employ clumsy establishing shots and empty transitions. The actors look great—too glossy to be representing the vulgar side of NYC as chronic recreational drug-users—but are generally stiff and awkward in their delivery. Ty Jones, who plays a drug dealer/would-be screenwriter, gives the most natural performance of the film (he’s definitely one to watch out for in more mainstream—and by that I mean expensive—cinema).

Perhaps this subject matter is better served by pornography or documentary, each of which would be a little of both. My Normal feels a little too… well, normal. Check out this film if you’re looking for a gentle introduction to BDSM. If you’re in the know, skip it.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, January 28th 2011

Black Swan

mandy — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Fox Searchlight

The hype had me prepared for Black Swan to be a disturbing and gory movie. But the truth of it is this: even if you’re squeamish, like me, there’s nothing in the film you can’t look at… out of context.

Context is the name of the game for director Darren Aronofsky, in this and his previous films. Aronofsky gives viewers rich, often confusing imagery—the back of someone’s head, for instance; a favorite shot he's borrowed from Hitchcock, Van Sant, and others—and then leaves it up to our minds to interpret his meaning. Example: a physical wound means one thing if it’s accidentally caused, another if it’s created by an external person, and still something else if self-inflicted. But if you only see the wound without its frame of reference, it means nothing beyond blood and guts.

Some viewers find this equivocating pretentious and sadistic, while others enjoy the challenge. With Black Swan, Aronofsky has achieved the ultimate cinematic ambiguity: his film will have us talking about it for years, trying to make heads or tails of what’s really going on with Nina the ballerina (Natalie Portman).

The trailer gives us the narrative framework (no spoilers ahead): Nina is a dedicated dancer who assumes the lead role in Swan Lake, only to end up in torment as she tries to shed her virginal white swan persona in favor of the darker, sensual black swan. Are her demons real or imagined? Can she play both parts, good and evil? Will she dance herself to death, or find fame and glory? Black Swan is a thriller racing to answer these questions. But saying it’s a movie about Swan Lake, or even about ballet in general, is like saying that Swan Lake is about birds.

When the curtain came down, so to speak, I wasn’t disturbed or scared. Instead, I felt mildly exhilarated and happy to go home to a foot massage from my husband. Later that night, however, I tossed and turned to terrifying dreams. I saw Nina’s mother’s icy stare. I dreamed of broken, twisted limbs and skin tearing from my body. The next morning, I received an email from a girlfriend with whom I’d seen the film: she claimed to be having “out of body sensations." What happened to us? How could we have endured viewing the film itself with no terror, only to wind up feeling dizzy and insecure later on? But that’s probably the point, right?

Black Swan transcends its obvious message of self-sacrifice for the sake of art and makes a wider statement about sexuality: it points out that women are intraculturally conditioned to sacrifice their own pleasure in favor of male gratification. We encourage and adopt a meme of female frigidity, forcing young girls to think of their virginity as something fragile, even breakable. We set up an expectation in young women that virginity and subsequent self-sacrifice can result in the “perfect” first time. (That’s according to me. You want a different conclusion? Ask a different critic.)

A review by Danusha Goska on the Internet Movie Database suggests Black Swan “tells us that women are fragile and neurotic and if they do anything remarkable it makes them crazy.” I went looking for this kind of reaction, and I liked finding that viewers are recognizing misogyny in the film. But to say that the filmmakers are sexists is inaccurate; in actuality, they’re pointing to existing rigid demands for women to model ourselves after feminine archetypes. True, Portman and costar Mila Kunis did reportedly lose an enormous amount of weight for their roles as skinny, somewhat masochistic dancers (about 20 lbs. each off already tiny bodies). But the question is: why are ballet dancers skinny, not why are actresses who play ballet dancers skinny?

One of the reasons I braved the supposed gore was because I wanted to gawk at pin thin bodies on screen. Instead of assuming an air of superiority to this trend, however, I found myself envying their ability to achieve a desired aesthetic. (Talk about social and cultural memes: women are supposed to be frigid and skinny, it would seem. And even this feminist, with all of her bravado, can’t get rid of a desire to be outwardly beautiful and adored.)

Okay, now comes the part when I tell you whether or not I recommend the film. I do. Black Swan is beautiful to look at and, at times, campy fun, but only fun for those who don’t mind a few days of psychological indigestion for which there may be no effective antacid.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, January 8th 2011

Gay, Straight and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation

mandy — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Simon LeVay

Oxford University Press

I recently had the pleasure of participating, as a feminist blogger, in a survey about the Feminist Blogosphere. Name? Age? Sex (or "gender," as she put it)? These were not difficult questions (for me) to answer. But when she asked me to identify my sexual orientation, I paused... and then I stumbled. “I’m straight, right?” I asked myself. I’m a woman married to a man. If sexuality is either one of two, possibly three, things, then quite obviously I am a heterosexual. But as Gore Vidal sharply put it: “Trust a nitwit society like this one to think that there are only two categories—fag and straight.”

The fact that I lead a heteronormative life means that I am “normal,” “average,” and “healthy,” doesn’t it? And as I have been leading a universally accepted lifestyle, I am afforded the privilege of thinking of sexuality—not as something that forms the core of one’s identity—but rather as something within a spectrum, and something that enhances one’s identity. When homosexuals have demanded the right to be so-called Lesbians and Gays as part of a movement of identity distinction and defense of their acceptability, I have often thought that, in actuality, said lesbians and gays are no different from me, just people with sexualities that fall elsewhere on the spectrum. But according to the neurologist Simon LeVay, heteros and homos are different on neurological, hormonal, and genetic levels.

May Simon LeVay’s overview of the science of sexuality, which he was instrumental in founding, Gay, Straight and the Reason Why, be admitted into the pantheon of sexual discourse housing Michel Foucault, Eve Sedgwick, Judith Butler, et al.—though he is in disagreement with many queer theorists having identified, as he claims, the scientific reasons for human homosexuality. Disputing the Kinsey scale and its seven categories, for instance, LeVay points out that most “non-heterosexual men are homosexual; few say that they are roughly equally attracted to both sexes.” However, he also points out that pathology doesn’t enter into “who we love”: “There’s nothing wrong with gay people,” he writes in his introduction. “I’m gay myself, and happy to be so. There are some differences between us and the rest of humanity, certainly, as I’ll discuss in this book. Some of these differences are trivial, and some may influence people’s lives in interesting ways…”

I really enjoyed reading this book. Surprised? I was. In the first place, I struggle to understand science. But LeVay has written this text with laypeople like me in mind. Technical terms are italicized when first employed and subsequently defined in a comprehensive glossary at the back of the book. Hence, reading about neurons and genes and hormones was like reading a recipe for shortbread cookies. While my literary academic background in sexuality and queer theory came in handy and my prior interest kept me engaged, I do believe this book is appropriate for anybody with rudimentary knowledge of sexuality and a genuine interest in understanding it.

One practical dilemma arises were society to apply LeVay’s finding—that homosexuality results in part from a size discrepancy in a cluster of nerves found in the hypothalamus—to everyday life: we’d need “new rules.” If most men, for instance, are heterosexual, but those who aren’t have a smaller than normal INAH3, then could homosexuality and its physical cause be considered a disability? Are homosexuals, with their observed differences from heterosexuals, disadvantaged because of this physical abnormality/disability (not taking into account the social stigma against homosexuality, whatever its root)? And what about people with normal INAH3 who exhibit homosexual longings or tendencies? What is our science? “All mental traits, including sexual orientation, have some durable representation in the brain,” LeVay reports. I find Ashley Judd, and not Angelina Jolie, sexually attractive. Can an explanation for that be found in my brain, or is it beyond pathology and part of the aforementioned “who we love” question? Can sexuality have a spiritual component?

LeVay’s discussion of gender is problematic for queer theory enthusiasts like me. While he concludes that gender traits are a “kaleidoscopic blend” amongst homosexuals, his science contradicts often this notion. He affirms that gay men are on average more “feminine” by their own account, and lesbian women more “masculine” by their own account, than their straight counterparts. This plays into the reductive Freudian (among other) expectation that human sexual relationships must consist of symbiotic masculine and feminine parts. Furthermore, there is evidence that suggests homosexuals have different anatomical makeup than heterosexuals. LeVay does not shy away from using potentially pejorative language: “…lesbians who identify as ‘butch’ have a higher (more male-like) waist-hip ratio than do straight women, whereas lesbians who identify as ‘femme’ have the same ratio as straight women. Because the waist-hip ratio rises if people become overweight, this difference does not necessarily represent a constitutional difference between butch and femme lesbians: It could simply be that butch lesbians have less interest in dieting or maintaining a ‘feminine’ profile.”

Gay, Straight and the Reason Why is full of these types of observations, the things we’re thinking about when we ponder about our human differences, but are often afraid to say aloud; and I give LeVay a lot of credit for his candor. Ultimately, his observations and those of his colleagues detailed herein make our eliminating the language and expectation of gender seem far, far away. But I appreciate good, thorough, critical discourse such as that which can be launched with documented research of this kind. I hope this text finds its way into many graduate seminars across many areas of study: from science to literature and film, and more!

Written by: Rachel Moehl, January 1st 2011

Why Don’t You Understand?: A Gender Relationship Dictionary

mandy — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Karen Gail Lewis

Dog Ear Publishing

Is it just me, or should a person with designation “Dr.” in front of her name know the difference between sex and gender? True: language changes all the time and words gain new meanings. So, as American society becomes increasingly uptight when talking about sex (the act), sex (the anatomical distinction) has been replaced in our vernacular with a word that refers to the classic assumptions for social role play placed upon each sex: gender. (It would seem we’re the new Victorians.)

This ambiguity isn’t the only issue I have with Dr. Karen Gail Lewis’ Why Don’t You Understand?. While the good doctor (of education) assumes that women are generally oversensitive, spontaneously emotional, nagging crackpots and men are under-responsive, clueless dingbats, and in doing so assumes too much; her real crime is in assuming that heterosexual couples are made up of these two parts universally. The answer to your query, Doc, isn’t that men and women don’t understand each other sometimes because we are different from each other owing to our sexes, but that people in general are unique individuals and, therefore, different from each other irrespective of their sexes.

It is the case that this dictionary comes along twenty or so years too late, now that we’ve been liberated from gender in many ways. Not all men have trouble expressing their feelings because they live in fear of a beating from dad or name-calling from school bullies. Yet Lewis has the audacity to make blanket observations like: “Men do not confront a relationship problem unless absolutely necessary because – like the boy who took apart and re-assembled a clock, only to have one piece left over – the risk is that they’ll make things much worse.”

Do men in homosexual relationships both behave this same way? If so, how do their problems get solved? What about women who don’t confront relationship problems head on? Are they abnormal? This text prompts many questions like these.

Education is never a waste. It’s a great idea to recognize your, and your partner’s, patterns of behavior. This can help you avoid many of the miscommunications detailed in this book. But the problem with gender assumptions is that they limit us. You can believe in astrology, for instance, but that doesn’t mean that you believe all people born under the sign of Aquarius are friendly yet unpredictable, at least not in the same exact way as the next Aquarian.

Of course, Lewis could have avoided this overwhelming analytic pitfall by eliminating the language of assumption. She could have described scenarios between Individual A and Individual B rather than Category Man and Category Woman. She could have contributed to the emerging relevance of queer theory, which challenges sex and gender binaries and their resulting “normal” behaviors. It is the acceptance of gender fluidity that liberates men and women by allowing us each to be the kind of person it feels good to be.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, October 24th 2010

The Pillars of the Earth

gita — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan

Starz

The Pillars of the Earth is the best kind of paint-by-numbers historical fiction: while it exhausts almost every cliché of its period and genre, it is nonetheless entertaining, perfect for lovers of history, action, romance and drama. Set during the twelfth century period in England known as “the Anarchy,” The Pillars of the Earth comes complete with lustful monks, displaced monarchs, incest, power-mongering, jealousy, greed, rape and treachery.

The upside for female viewers, who might normally feel marginalized by run-of-the-mill historical epics, is that despite the fact that its running time of eight hours is jam-packed with said themes, the film still manages to include interesting female characters. And even though all of the characters have been created using a twenty-first century perspective, rather than one contemporary to the story, they pique our interest as to whether or not collective humanity has evolved much since the days of Catholic indulgences.

The central plot revolves around the building of a Gothic cathedral at a priory run by a monk with good intentions. One of Prior Philip’s good deeds is to rescue a resourceful fleece merchant Aliena, a noblewoman who was raised by her mother to choose her own destiny. She not only becomes an entrepreneurial force to be reckoned with, while trying to restore the noble status of herself and her brother, a battling knight; she also attracts the attention of several young men, two with ill intent. Whether it is because they resent or covet her power and independence, Aliena falls victim to rape and violence. This begs the question that modern women have been asking for over a century: can a woman be both independent and loved? Many feminists struggle with reconciling heterosexual love with financial/emotional/intellectual freedom.

Aliena probably would not have thought of her situation in this way, but the series does, especially as it juxtaposes her against two other independent women: Lady Regan Hamleigh, mother to Aliena’s first suitor turned rapist, and Ellen, a supposed witch and mother to Aliena’s true love. Hamleigh, despite a physical deformity that renders her largely unattractive, is able to manipulate the men around her using her sexuality and flattery. She is one of the masterminds behind many of the evil deeds that thwart construction of the cathedral.

Ellen, a disgraced novice who fled her nunnery after conceiving her son Jack, is unique in that she is literate and multilingual. She is thought to be a witch and is consequently feared by many, mainly because she makes a habit of “cursing” those who cross her, and speaks openly about sexuality. When summing up her faith in God to Prior Philip, she says: “I love God, though I don’t worship her quite the same way as you do. My church hasn’t as many rules as yours and is a lot more forgiving. And as for morality, I use love as my compass, which Christ seemed to approve of even if you don’t.”

Conventional motherhood is constantly challenged in The Pillars of the Earth, especially when the most nurturing “mother” turns out to be a monk named Johnny Eightpence, who saves an abandoned baby after his biological mother’s untimely death in childbirth. Eightpence nurses baby Jonathan with goat’s milk and hugs him close during his fledgling years, much to the bewilderment of those around them, masculine stoicism being the social expectation for men. In this story, women rebel against established authorities and men cower under the weight of chaos. It all leaves me wondering if things would have been different were women the wielders of swords?

The acting is generally fine with standout performances from Hayley Atwell (Aliena) and Eddie Redmayne (Jack). The production is atmospheric and sufficiently gritty, though film stock would have brought out the nuances of the sets and costumes better than the HD Video that was employed. The screenplay was adapted by John Pielmeier (Agnes of God) from the novel by Ken Follett; all episodes were directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan. The series benefits from the persistence of vision of single creators in both categories as its rhythm and style are consistent throughout. However, Pillars feels pinched for time with many major characters. Pielmeier dwells too long on the details of the war between competing monarchs—background information that viewers can research—and sacrifices quality time with the elaborate fictional world of Kingsbridge. All in all, The Pillars of the Earth is entertaining enough to keep viewers hooked for two months and could have stretched longer.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, October 7th 2010

My things, my grand-mother’s things

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Sarah Pinder

Bits of String Press

One of the wonderful things about living in this digital age is that you don’t have to be famous to be a real artist or a writer. You can create your vision, and then get it out into the world through the Internet if you're so inclined. And once online, you don't ever have to throw anything you create away. It can all be stored... forever.

Enter Sarah Pinder: a Toronto essayist who, for a decade now, has been a maker of zines, self-published works. And for about two bucks (Canadian currency), you can own and enjoy her brief yet insightful pondering My things, my grand-mother’s things.

What I like about Pinder’s prose is that it’s highly relatable. True, I can relate as a woman with a Depression-era grandparent who hoarded trinkets away, and as one who helped to clear those objects out of attics and basements after that seemingly ancient relative had passed on. And I can relate to her take on twenty-something nostalgia: the place when we’re not quite ready to be grown up and throw away our childhood things.

But most, if not all, people can relate to her rather haunting description of how the spaces we inhabit shape and trap our memories, not because of their own qualities, but because they become “repositories” for the things we collect along the way: “My grandmother lived in a house that was a constant archive of identity... Everything in this house was a touchstone, a trigger to summon memory... And regardless of how broken or worn things were, my grandparents’ Depression aesthetic meant that nothing was thrown out...”

This reviewer had two sets of Depression-surviving grandparents and observed two distinct reactions to the crisis. One set decided that: well, if they overcame that, they could overcome anything. They lived out their days without saving much of anything. The other parent's father became a hoarder. This man, who as a boy had shot and skinned squirrels for supper so as not to starve, secretly tucked away mountains of seemingly meaningless household items: camera film, new pens, etc. He was never content to have just one of anything after the Depression ended, and cleaning out his closets yielded hundreds, if not thousands, of things-treasures to him-that told tales of a man obsessed with getting to the bottom of how things work, and a man who lived in fear of owning absolutely nothing.

Pinder’s essay serves as a wonderful launch pad for this kind of reminiscing if you’re game. Her words seem genuine and her doodles–somewhat resembling the sketches of Shel Silverstein–might remind you of any number of seemingly frivolous objects your ancestors once collected and then subsequently left behind. “(I)t seemed callous to get rid of objects from a space that held such meaning for me, regardless of the fact that the objects I had were not the touchstones I’d hoped to use to recreate my grandmother’s life before illness,” Pinder reveals.

For more information or to purchase any of Pinder’s zines, visit her online hub Bits of String Press. My things, my grand-mother’s things was given as a lecture in October, 2009 at the Ontario College of Art and Design during a symposium called “Collectorama,” which focused on people’s obsessions with the act of collecting.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, August 31st 2010

Role Models

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:14:00 +0000

By John Waters

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

When you decide to read a memoir, do you do so to commune with the author–to get to know his inner secrets, what makes him tick? If that’s the reason you usually shop the autobiography and memoir section of the bookstore, steer clear of controversial filmmaker (Hairspray, Cecil B. Demented) John Waters’ new “memoir” Role Models. While disclosing inspiration is no problem for the eclectic Waters, laying his guts out on the table is not his strong suit.

Of course, memoir can also be an account of someone else’s life as observed by the author–and in this case, we’re talking about the lives of famous crooners, a notorious killer, and fringe pornographers, to name a few. But if you’re looking for major insight into why John Waters is simultaneously comfortable with labels like “King of Puke,” “Duke of Dirt” and maker of “trash epics,” but doesn’t want to end up a gay cliché–as he confesses one of his heroes Tennessee Williams avoided becoming, you won’t find it here.

You won’t find much of anything personal in this book. As Waters warns, “The ultimate level of celebrity accomplishment is convincing the press and public that they know everything about your personal life without really revealing anything.” And speaking of Tennessee Williams: his chapter begins “Tennessee Williams saved my life.” From what? He never says. Waters alludes to conformity and cliché as terrible things to avoid in life; but you might find yourself longing for more depth from a lengthy and detailed confession about the psychic wounds of childhood after reading such a statement. It just isn’t there.

In his Leslie Van Houten chapter, Waters confesses to the tragic event in his own life that inspired his used and reused face-pressed-against-the-windshield-of-a-car image. Beyond this small detail, you’d be hard-pressed to find much else worth discussing in film school or after a screening of Polyester, for instance, in this self-effacing work.

Perhaps his most interesting observations are found in the "Leslie" chapter simply because there are no other humanizing portraits of this Manson family killer to be found: “Leslie inspired me too. Inspired me to believe that if you wait long enough and work hard enough on your damaged psyche, you can eventually come out of it with some kind of self-respect and mental health.” But again, the questions and not the answers to the Waters’ enigma resurface for the reader: why does Waters see his own sins as akin to those of a woman who stabbed another sixteen times with a knife in the lower back, as Van Houten did to Rosemary LaBianca in 1969? The "Leslie" chapter is the most compelling of the book, but Waters lingers too long on this subject and apologizes for the crime, saying he understands its severity, too many times.

As this critic went over her notes after finishing the book, she discovered that she’d written more than two dozen question marks in its margins. This harks back to the point Waters made early on about causing people to think they know everything about him, when really he has shrewdly kept his secrets under wraps. For every insight into the real Waters the reader gets, there's at least one question about said reality that naturally follows.

Role Models is an interesting read, but it’s never as shocking or grotesque as any one of Waters’ films. And its message is muddled: do perverts exist because of or in spite of public opinion? Waters’ seems to teeter back and forth between wanting to vindicate his socially rejected role models and wanting to celebrate their freak status. One thing is for sure: reading this book is like turning over a rock in the mud and examining all of the creepy-crawlies you’d find there. Do it for the fun of learning something new, even though you’ll learn very little about cult filmmaker John Waters.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, August 29th 2010

Lizzy the Lezzy

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Ruth Selwyn

Sundance Channel

To celebrate Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, the Sundance Channel has released five digitally animated Lizzy the Lezzy short films featuring the irreverent stand up comedy and musical humor of their title character. Who is this Lizzy the Lezzy – besides an Internet and television phenom who’s been featured on AfterEllen.com and Logo TV’s Alien Boot Camp? Well, as she puts it: "I’m Lizzy the Lezzy and I am a dyke." (I guess it’s okay when she says it.)

For your information, she also goes by “muff munching freak,” among other deceptively self-deprecating labels. In reality, lesbian pride is her thing. If you’re not shy about lesbian, gay, or heterosexuality, you’ll want to check out Lizzy’s films as soon as possible for a good laugh or two…or nine (I counted). Even though Lizzy uses these often disparaging labels to identify herself, she quickly dispenses with the formalities and basks in happy banter about the joys of being a lesbian, and the joys of sexual intercourse between all people: "Love is bi. Love is queer. Love is shoving things in your lover’s rear." But also: "Love is for all wherever you are."

Whether she’s lamenting the fact that women aren’t allowed to walk around with bare breasts exposed in most industrialized parts of the world—something people of both sexes and most sexual orientations might complain about too—or the unfortunate smallness of the out and proud lesbian community, Lizzy is a cute, singsong-y presence of simple animation who makes for a good few minutes of enlightenment here and there. Accept her humor or don’t: it’s unapologetic and refreshingly matter of fact, even if it doesn’t cover any new turf. Though Lizzy has a tendency to sexually objectify women—admittedly so—she also professes to love women in their natural glory; some of her comic stints are as much celebrations of womanhood as they are lesbian identity.

Two things that might alarm some viewers are Lizzy’s high-pitched voice and childlike appearance; she somewhat resembles an extra from an episode of South Park. This demeanor aligns nicely with the open-minded awe and wonder Lizzy employs to examine the world around her, and allows for her witty stand up to seem fresh. She’s not a child, though she is somewhat babyish, and those who find the likes of South Park difficult to stomach are hereby cautioned to stay away.

Fans of The L Word will want to seek out Lizzy’s shorts that critique and celebrate the show and its characters. Even though she can’t remember all the lyrics to the show’s theme song, it’s fun hearing her take on its mainstream, Hollywood-packaged lesbian ideals. The Lizzy the Lezzy digital shorts were created by Ruth Selwyn and can currently be viewed online at SundanceChannel.com and LizzytheLezzy.com.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, June 23rd 2010