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Feb. 20th, 2011 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionThe Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity and Globalization - The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group. Without really thinking about it much, I generally had a conception of flappers as a white US construction. Maybe if someone had prodded me about, say, the UK, I would've agreed that there were probably flappers there too in the '20s. But places like China, India, South Africa, the Soviet Union? It never would've occurred to me, to my shame, and it didn't to some of these academics at first, either. This anthology is a good starting point, then, to dispel the myths that the "Modern Girl" was a purely (white) US thing, & that if similar sensibilities appeared in other cultures, it was just uncritical copying of US products & fashions. Part of the pleasure of this book, for me, was simply seeing the visual evidence (photographs, ads, etc.) of a broader spectrum of Modern Girls.
Race, of course, was a major factor. For African Americans & black Africans, the Modern Girl aesthetic (including an increased focus on makeup, face creams, etc.) could be used as a tool of racial uplift or a way to be connected with the black diaspora--or alternatively, despised as shamefully sexual. In the US & Germany, often ads for Modern Girl products featured images of exotified East Asian women--though this changed in Germany during the march towards World War II. And, yes, in some countries the cosmetics were marketed as whitening products. In India, the shaping of the modern girl was an effort to show that India could be modern, but in a way that was different from its colonizers & that was distinctly Indian. In Australia, aboriginal women were often denied access to Modern Girl products, styles, and ways of being, although the article in this book gives some rare examples (in text & visually) of exceptions. For young women in Okinawa, meanwhile, the Modern Girl aesthetic had ties both to modernity in general but also Japaneseness.
I could go on--there are whole chunks of the book I haven't even mentioned--but suffice to say, all very interesting. Each of the essays could be expanded into its own book, & I certainly hope that at least some of them are, because it's clear this is really the tip of the iceberg. I'd also like to see more writings on these topics from people of the cultures/countries being discussed; many of the authors here seem to be writing as outsiders, & I'd love a different view.
Live Through This: On Creativity & Self-Destruction - Edited by Sabrina Chapadjiev. First of all: major trigger warnings for this book, if it isn't obvious from the title. This is a collection of pieces (essays, art, poetry), mostly by women, about the ties between creativity & fighting for your own survival--often against mental illness, but not always (there's one piece about breast cancer that features incredibly culturally appropriative photography: think dress-ups in the doctor's office featuring saris, "pimps & hos," "Chemo Sabe"...). I felt like the editor's intro came a little close to romanticizing the ties between creativity & self-destruction, or perhaps implying that the two things are inextricable. This made me angry, & sad, b/c I know for so many of my friends the two things are related, but I refuse to believe they have to be.
The quality of the submissions varies widely, unsurprising, really. On the one hand it feels like a shitty thing to do, to judge someone's art about how they get past some hard stuff in their life. On the other, well, it's hard to resist. And, y'know, I don't think a lot of the strategies would work for me (I continue to find the Icarus Project model of mental illness unhelpful & like a slap in the face, really)--but I don't think that's the point of this book. Or, not the sole point; nothing is going to work for everyone, & it's powerful for people to talk about what works for them. Still, I think I expected to feel more from this book than I did: more moved, more validated, more empowered? I dunno.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks - E. Lockhart. I had serious political alienation from this YA novel about an outsider girl at an elite boarding school who grows tits & gets sexy the summer before her sophomore year & then beats the campus Old Boys' Club at their own game. First of all: elite boarding school. I'm so tired of books set at such places, & the upper-crust, super-white cast of characters that inevitably entails.
Secondly: Frankie comes back to school all hot & quickly snags a prize of a boyfriend, senior Matthew Livingston. It becomes apparent he's hiding something from her, & tired of being left out & condescended to, Frankie gets her spy on & discovers the boys' secret society, which she takes over (in disguise). Yay for gutsy teen girls using their brains to bust into the most elite of no-girls-allowed treehouses, right? As her dad (an alumnus of both the school & the secret society) says, the point of the school is to make connections that will help Frankie through her whole life. & here's part of my issue. Frankie is in love with Matthew, & mentions that she loves his circle of friends, too, the raucous, powerful boys who make up the secret society. I'm not feeling it. They seem like macho privileged teen-boy braggarts: nothing desirable about them whatsoever. Hey, at least the guys in Tam Lin had the appeal of poetry, right? Not even that poor consolation here. Frankie's older sister Zada, an alumna of the school, & Frankie's roommate Trish, a geek content to be such, try to persuade her life outside the inner circle is just fine, & that it's no big loss to be left out of them. She dismisses Zada as a hippie (she goes to Berkeley) & mentally derides Trish for having a sweet boyfriend who has no sex appeal.
Me, I would rather form my own networks & systems, based on my own values, & subvert power that way, especially when power is portrayed as either completely dull or completely inane, as it is here--unintentionally, I guess. I admire Frankie's nerve while not being able to empathize with her goals or cheer her on, because Lockhart hasn't painted a picture of the power being worth grabbing, at all. Yes, I know that the old boy networks Frankie's dad reference have real & disturbing ramifications regarding jobs and money and power. But that's not what Frankie's thinking about; she sees a locked door she can't get into, & automatically wants to get in, wants that sense of belonging she sees the boys having. To me the results aren't worth the effort, & well, I guess my idea of shaking up the systems of power is different from Frankie's.
The WisCon Chronicles Volume 4: Voices of WisCon - Edited by Sylvia Kelso. I forgot that I was involved in the POC conversation that got printed in this book, & also that someone submitted a photo of me & a friend--so two surprises when I read this one! (Note to self: lay off the caps lock!)
Anyway: one of the things that struck me most about this was how many of the pieces were quite obviously con/panel reports taken (what seemed to be) verbatim off someone's blog. There's nothing wrong w/that in itself, but many of them seemed to end abruptly or reference people & events in a way that probably makes more sense to a regular reader of the blog, but doesn't translate particularly smoothly to the context of a book. There were some great panel reports that I know did come from someone's blog--they seemed to be more self-contained, or perhaps had a bit of judicious editing before inclusion.
Another thing that struck me is that there were moments of backlash against, say, people who protested RaceFail, etc. There were definitely times reading the book where I thought, okay, that might be your WisCon (the theme of the book being "My WisCon"), & that right there is one of the reasons despite everything WisCon is often unsafe for me. There was also a lot of pushback against this stuff--RaceFail & ableism came up as themes--which I was glad to see!
The academic stuff mostly left me cold (this is why I never go to the academic track).
Anyway--as usual, mostly a pleasure to read, despite the stuff I mention above, & a good way to experience more of the con after the fact (since no one can go to every panel or party).
Race, of course, was a major factor. For African Americans & black Africans, the Modern Girl aesthetic (including an increased focus on makeup, face creams, etc.) could be used as a tool of racial uplift or a way to be connected with the black diaspora--or alternatively, despised as shamefully sexual. In the US & Germany, often ads for Modern Girl products featured images of exotified East Asian women--though this changed in Germany during the march towards World War II. And, yes, in some countries the cosmetics were marketed as whitening products. In India, the shaping of the modern girl was an effort to show that India could be modern, but in a way that was different from its colonizers & that was distinctly Indian. In Australia, aboriginal women were often denied access to Modern Girl products, styles, and ways of being, although the article in this book gives some rare examples (in text & visually) of exceptions. For young women in Okinawa, meanwhile, the Modern Girl aesthetic had ties both to modernity in general but also Japaneseness.
I could go on--there are whole chunks of the book I haven't even mentioned--but suffice to say, all very interesting. Each of the essays could be expanded into its own book, & I certainly hope that at least some of them are, because it's clear this is really the tip of the iceberg. I'd also like to see more writings on these topics from people of the cultures/countries being discussed; many of the authors here seem to be writing as outsiders, & I'd love a different view.
Live Through This: On Creativity & Self-Destruction - Edited by Sabrina Chapadjiev. First of all: major trigger warnings for this book, if it isn't obvious from the title. This is a collection of pieces (essays, art, poetry), mostly by women, about the ties between creativity & fighting for your own survival--often against mental illness, but not always (there's one piece about breast cancer that features incredibly culturally appropriative photography: think dress-ups in the doctor's office featuring saris, "pimps & hos," "Chemo Sabe"...). I felt like the editor's intro came a little close to romanticizing the ties between creativity & self-destruction, or perhaps implying that the two things are inextricable. This made me angry, & sad, b/c I know for so many of my friends the two things are related, but I refuse to believe they have to be.
The quality of the submissions varies widely, unsurprising, really. On the one hand it feels like a shitty thing to do, to judge someone's art about how they get past some hard stuff in their life. On the other, well, it's hard to resist. And, y'know, I don't think a lot of the strategies would work for me (I continue to find the Icarus Project model of mental illness unhelpful & like a slap in the face, really)--but I don't think that's the point of this book. Or, not the sole point; nothing is going to work for everyone, & it's powerful for people to talk about what works for them. Still, I think I expected to feel more from this book than I did: more moved, more validated, more empowered? I dunno.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks - E. Lockhart. I had serious political alienation from this YA novel about an outsider girl at an elite boarding school who grows tits & gets sexy the summer before her sophomore year & then beats the campus Old Boys' Club at their own game. First of all: elite boarding school. I'm so tired of books set at such places, & the upper-crust, super-white cast of characters that inevitably entails.
Secondly: Frankie comes back to school all hot & quickly snags a prize of a boyfriend, senior Matthew Livingston. It becomes apparent he's hiding something from her, & tired of being left out & condescended to, Frankie gets her spy on & discovers the boys' secret society, which she takes over (in disguise). Yay for gutsy teen girls using their brains to bust into the most elite of no-girls-allowed treehouses, right? As her dad (an alumnus of both the school & the secret society) says, the point of the school is to make connections that will help Frankie through her whole life. & here's part of my issue. Frankie is in love with Matthew, & mentions that she loves his circle of friends, too, the raucous, powerful boys who make up the secret society. I'm not feeling it. They seem like macho privileged teen-boy braggarts: nothing desirable about them whatsoever. Hey, at least the guys in Tam Lin had the appeal of poetry, right? Not even that poor consolation here. Frankie's older sister Zada, an alumna of the school, & Frankie's roommate Trish, a geek content to be such, try to persuade her life outside the inner circle is just fine, & that it's no big loss to be left out of them. She dismisses Zada as a hippie (she goes to Berkeley) & mentally derides Trish for having a sweet boyfriend who has no sex appeal.
Me, I would rather form my own networks & systems, based on my own values, & subvert power that way, especially when power is portrayed as either completely dull or completely inane, as it is here--unintentionally, I guess. I admire Frankie's nerve while not being able to empathize with her goals or cheer her on, because Lockhart hasn't painted a picture of the power being worth grabbing, at all. Yes, I know that the old boy networks Frankie's dad reference have real & disturbing ramifications regarding jobs and money and power. But that's not what Frankie's thinking about; she sees a locked door she can't get into, & automatically wants to get in, wants that sense of belonging she sees the boys having. To me the results aren't worth the effort, & well, I guess my idea of shaking up the systems of power is different from Frankie's.
The WisCon Chronicles Volume 4: Voices of WisCon - Edited by Sylvia Kelso. I forgot that I was involved in the POC conversation that got printed in this book, & also that someone submitted a photo of me & a friend--so two surprises when I read this one! (Note to self: lay off the caps lock!)
Anyway: one of the things that struck me most about this was how many of the pieces were quite obviously con/panel reports taken (what seemed to be) verbatim off someone's blog. There's nothing wrong w/that in itself, but many of them seemed to end abruptly or reference people & events in a way that probably makes more sense to a regular reader of the blog, but doesn't translate particularly smoothly to the context of a book. There were some great panel reports that I know did come from someone's blog--they seemed to be more self-contained, or perhaps had a bit of judicious editing before inclusion.
Another thing that struck me is that there were moments of backlash against, say, people who protested RaceFail, etc. There were definitely times reading the book where I thought, okay, that might be your WisCon (the theme of the book being "My WisCon"), & that right there is one of the reasons despite everything WisCon is often unsafe for me. There was also a lot of pushback against this stuff--RaceFail & ableism came up as themes--which I was glad to see!
The academic stuff mostly left me cold (this is why I never go to the academic track).
Anyway--as usual, mostly a pleasure to read, despite the stuff I mention above, & a good way to experience more of the con after the fact (since no one can go to every panel or party).
no subject
Date: 2011-02-21 06:48 am (UTC)I do like Disreputable History as a book, largely because of the wry narrative voice, but I keep flip-flopping as to how I feel about Frankie basically wanting to break into the boys' club. I think there's a point in the book where the narrator says that a lot of girls would either retreat and do an all-girls thing or stand on the side and be a girlfriend, and me, I would totally just go into my all-female sphere. But that is where I am most comfortable by default, so possibly I am just projecting. I was also bugged by how in the end, Frankie gets acknowledgment from one of the guys and cherishes that, whereas most of the input from the female characters seemed to go either unnoticed or was otherwise denigrated.
That said, I've also had conversations with people who felt that the narrative was distanced enough and had commentary on how alienating activism can be, even if it's mostly limited to school pranks, and I really did like the portrayal of how Frankie was still the outside, even at the end.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-21 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-22 10:28 pm (UTC)Anyway, later on I read Lockhart's Fly on the Wall and so much in it rubbed me the wrong way. I'd like to reread Frankie and see how I feel about it from a more critical perspective. I recently read Mockingbirds (another secret society at a private school book) and found it really dull/irritating, so maybe I've become a little more attuned to private school YA lit tropes over time.