Jan. 14th, 2011

jethrien: (Default)
This is brought to you via the Green Hornet, which is getting lukewarm reviews today.

So once upon a time, when men were men and women and minorities knew their place, men (white men, of course, the others don't count) in television and movies and comics were competent and benignly indulgent of the dizziness and incompetence of their female companions and minority sidekicks. See, say, The Spirit or I Love Lucy.

These days, it seems far more likely, at least in light-hearted fare, that the women are the competent ones, while the men are overgrown man-children who need to be gently herded lest they do nothing with their lives but drink beer and make fart jokes. With the Green Hornet, we apparently have the same dynamic--Kato is the hyper competent killjoy to his employer's inanity.

So here's the question. Is it that we've made some progress, so women and minorities are allowed to be competent? (Clearly, not enough progress, as the main character's still a guy and the woman/minority still acts as an "other". Although I'd certainly rather be boringly responsible and competent than a ditz.) Or is the social mores have changed enough that the prejudice is still just as bad? Is it that in the 1950s, competence was prized and therefore only white men got it, while now perpetual adolescence is prized and therefore only white men get it?

(I realizing I'm totally generalizing here. Obviously there are movies with female heroes and so on. Although, I can't think of a movie where a woman acts as badly as the men in, say, Knocked Up or Iron Man. It seems that you can be a useless, irresponsible schlub and still be sympathetic and even heroic, but only if you're a white dude. Anyway, there are lots of exceptions, but I feel like there's enough of a trend to think about.)
jethrien: (Default)
We just had a surprise wedding shower for one of my coworkers, whom I like very much. Having no willpower to speak of once sweets are directly in front of me, I may have just consumed two pieces of stollen, a glass of prosecco, some peanut butter M&Ms, and two brownies with espresso in them. (And by "may", we mean "definitely".) Now, the calories are on the ridiculous side, but whatever. A few too many brownies now and then isn't going to kill me. I am ever so slightly tipsy, but so is everyone else, and that will probably burn off by the end of lunch.

More critically...I think I've consumed more sugar in one sitting than I have in some time. I am so out of my mind on a sugar high. Crappity crap crap. Well, assuming I can focus at all, this spreadsheet is going to be the fastest spreadsheet ever spreadsheeted. Or something.

OMG there's so much candy in the conference room right now.

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