- I don’t think I’m actually going to be using this, and not least of all because I almost never use Chrome or its extensions, but this is interesting: Jailbreak the Patriarchy, an extension that gender-swaps all the pronouns. [via]
- The YA Paranormal Drinking Game [via]
- “It has come to our attention that Ayn Rand was in fact a self-serving sociopath. We regret the error.” Copies of the Atlas Shrugged DVD pulled because they (very mistakenly) called it a “timeless novel of courage and self-sacrifice” [via]
- Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home will be a musical. That’s…interesting.
- And finally, these Paranormal United States [via]
sexism
Wednesday various
- Mike Daisey remembers Steve Jobs:
Mr. Jobs’s magic has its costs. We can admire the design perfection and business acumen while acknowledging the truth: with Apple’s immense resources at his command he could have revolutionized the industry to make devices more humanely and more openly, and chose not to. If we view him unsparingly, without nostalgia, we would see a great man whose genius in design, showmanship and stewardship of the tech world will not be seen again in our lifetime. We would also see a man who in the end failed to “think different,†in the deepest way, about the human needs of both his users and his workers.
- Actress sues IMDb for revealing that she’s totally old and gross. It’s an interesting case, although I don’t think IMDB has a responsibility to lie in order to combat Hollywood’s unfortunate age- and sexism.
- Mysterious paper sculptures [via]
- I’m sure by now you’ve heard this, but it’s still pretty remarkable: Online Gamers Make Discovery in HIV Battle
- And finally, learning the wrong lesson from 127 Hours.
Tuesday various
- Wonder Woman: Who Needs A Father Figure?
The issue goes to the very heart of Wonder Woman’s character and the nature of her message. Diana has been presented as an Amazon, beholden to no man from birth and therefore unbound from the question of patriarchal control. Though she has often worked for (with?) the gods in the stories — even joined them temporarily as the goddess of truth — Wonder Woman is presented as a woman of her own identity independent of boyfriend, husband, or father figure. Despite years of the old ’will she/won’t she’ with male characters like Steve Trevor, Superman, Nemesis and even Batman, Wonder Woman has remained a woman devoid of close male ties outside of friendship. She has provided readers with a portrayal of a woman outside of the boundaries of the patriarchy that she speaks out against. By including a male parent with as powerful a hand and presence as Zeus — not to mention with such a history of philandering — the story has shifted to add a new familial dynamic and a new, powerful patriarch to Diana’s life.
I don’t have any great familiarity with the character, although I read (and was a little confused by) the first issue of the new reboot. But I’m not sure boiling everything down to daddy issues is really the best way to go. It seems like they’re grafting Clash of the Titans onto the mythos, and that’s not good for anybody.
- More on fixing comics’ “women problem”: Female Super-Hero Characters and Sex: Creators Explain How Comics Can Do Better. I think Kieron Gillen says it well:
If you treat your characters as objects instead of characters you are, by definition, objectifying them, and if you constantly objectify your female characters you come across as sexist. [via]
- Global warming was all fun and games, but now it’s affecting peanut butter and chocolate, and it’s serious. [via]
- Starbucks concerned world coffee supply is threatened by climate change. It’s possible the world’s ecological problems will only be solved when it’s in industry’s best interests to do so. [via]
- And finally, The Electronic Publishing Bingo Card
Wednesday various
- Obama’s Kickstarter Campaign to Solve the Debt [via]
- On a more serious note, an interesting look inside Kickstarter itself.
- Moore’s Law may soon be broken. Whither the Singularity? [via]
- If Male Superheroes Posed Like Wonder Woman. We’ve seen this sort of thing before, but…well, that there is part of the problem, isn’t it? [via]
- And finally, Matthew Cheney revisits the movie Stand By Me:
When I was ten, Stand By Me felt like the apex of realism because I’d never encountered a character who seemed so much like me as Gordie did. Twenty-five years later, it feels real for opposite reasons: for its naked artificiality. It gets right the way we shore up our fading memories by turning them into stories, by setting a soundtrack to them, by finding just the right words for every conversation and just the right lessons for every walk down the railroad tracks.
Monday various
- Monty Python’s Life of Brian recreated for BBC comic drama. This could be interesting.
- Wendell Pierce, of ‘The Wire’ and ‘Treme,’ to open groceries in New Orleans ‘food deserts’. Good for him! [via]
- Thudfactor in defense of parental leave:
Finally, complaining that parental leave is an unfair “benefit†because not everyone has or wants children is a like complaining psychological medial coverage is unfair because not everyone is insane, or permanent disability coverage is unfair because not everyone is guaranteed to have their legs chewed off by mechanical equipment while on the clock.
- Of course, along the same lines, the sad news that Women have to have a Ph.D. to Make As Much As Men With a B.A.. [via]
- And finally, the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie, Twixt is just bizarre. His plans to “exhibit [it] as a road show, re-editing the movie after every screening based on audience reaction” sounds almost normal by comparison: