review

I don't know if this is national, so I thought I'd post it up.

Dairy Queen has a commercial where a young couple is daydreaming over some ice cream. The man dreams the soon-to-come baby is a boy and the woman dreams that *she* is holding the video camera and coaching the birth while the man suffers labor and yells into the camera "You did this to me!"

heh.

Kim Ponders on Blogher writes a compelling post Fear Up Harsh where she begins,

Last week’s New Yorker highlighted the 2 ½ year efforts of Alberto J. Mora, the Navy’s former general counsel, to avoid interrogation techniques like “fear up harsh�—increasing the prisoner’s fear level to such extreme that he feels compelled to confess—that violate the Geneva Conventions.

This goes to the highest levels in the government,

That was the point Mora made when he went public in the New Yorker with a 22-page memo documenting his long, unsuccessful struggle to keep Bush administration officials not only within the law, but also within the our long-standing tradition of fair and humane war practice.

The blog, the New Yorker Article, and the 22-page memo are truly worth a careful reading.

Author Ponders, concludes,

Our alarming disregard of the Geneva Conventions after the 9/11 attacks is, to me, the worst crime we have committed against ourselves as a free and open democracy since the days of Japanese internment during WWII. In allowing ourselves to commit torture on war criminals, we have negated the very values we stand for.

Forrest Church in his book the "Seven Deadly Virtues" reminds us that we must pick our enemies carefully, for in the end, we will become like them.

This latest revelation reminds us just how far down that road the United States has gone.

Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

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Warning: game spoilers.

Beyond Good & Evil is one of the few games that features a hero who just happens to be female. Whilst the feminism is cloaked, it can be argued that this game is much more subversive than it appears.

Overview

Beyond Good & Evil is an action-adventure game available on a wide array of platforms. Despite good reviews, it did not sell as well as expected.

Beyond Good & Evil has an emphasis on plot, but not at the expense of action, with plenty of fighting and scouting around the otherworld landscape. The setting is a peaceful mining planet called Hillys. There are plenty of puzzles and obstacles, and the game rewards stealth, patience, curiosity, and perserverance. You can can access maps, which help you navigate the Hillys world and find hidden areas, and you are able to buy and carry items and food. While the game is driven by a narrative, there's plenty of time to explore the world and pursue auxiliary quests.

Stylistically, the game is well-crafted. There are beautiful landscapes and vistas, although not all the environments are pleasant: there are some dark and creepy settings as well, particularly as the game progresses. Jade and other characteres are well-rendered, and the musical score is used to great effect, in terms of creating a fantasy world and heightening the drama.

The most unique aspect in Beyond Good and Evil is that it features a main character who just happens to be female.

Meet Jade

The hero and main character—the character that you closely identify with and the only character you're able to control from beginning to end—is Jade, a young woman who lives in a lighthouse orphanage.

The narrative is constructed from Jade's point of view, and generally we learn new information when she does (although the game leaves clues that the savvy player can pick up on). Jade's parents are deceased, and she has only her Uncle Pey'j as family. However, while other characters are important, they are subordinate to the character of Jade.

This is quite a switch for action/adventure games, where central characters are usually male.

You're not The Woman, but a woman

Jade isn't surrounded by male characters, either. The Governor of Hillys is a woman (what's more, a black woman), as is the Museum Director, who pays Jade for the photographs she takes of new life forms. At least one character of a underground rebel cell is female (a cat woman) as well.

Although the proportion of female to male characters is still weighted towards the male, female characters are placed in positions of status and power and, more importantly, risk.

Tension between traditional and modern narratives

Some elements of the narrative provide tension between a more traditional female role and a more modern, feminist understanding of Jade.

Firstly, she's given permission to rebel, sleuth, break rules, and explore through a traditional "protector mother" narrative. She's doing this all for the children - that is, the orphans at the lighthouse.

This is a non-threatening role for a female character, as it gives her special license to act up and act out, in a way that women usually aren't allowed. Think Sigorney Weaver's maternal motive in "Alien 2", or, more recently, Jodie Foster's character in Flightplan. Audiences are more comfortable seeing women as acting upon the world when their motivation is child-based.

And yet Jade-as-protector turns out to be a pretense that is dropped fairly quickly. Sporadically, she thinks of the orphans, but this motivation is on-parr with her need to know the truth. While the game appears to cater to conservative views of gender roles, it is actually some pretty thin wallpaper. The real puzzle, for Jade and the player, is:

Under whose control is she living?

This is the core of the game.

No Love Lost

Additionally, Beyond Good and Evil is equally notable for what it leaves out: the "love narrative." Jade's quest is not to be subsumed by a love interest, nor is she to be the object of someone's desire. Those stories usually imply that the most interesting thing about a female character is how men regard her, and what happens in her personal life; but Jade's story is larger than that, extending to governments, underground political groups, and military forces.

This is a significant departure, given that in the gaming world the female character is usually assigned a stock love narrative, and that is all that is done to develop her character. It is significant, then, that Jade is first and foremost a person, who is solving a problem that is larger and more complex than her personal world.

What does she look like?

The physical form of Jade is conducive to a woman-as-person-not-sex-object reading. Bear in mind, the gaming world brought us Lara Croft, which was wildly popular. In comparison to Croft, Jade is more human and less feminized. While she wears some sort of lipstick, it is green , not red or pink, and this slightly undermines the erotic meaning attached to lipstick. Her anatomy is matter-of-factly female: the breasts are just there - a part of her like every other part. She wears military green combat trousers and a lightweight t-shirt with a green jacket. The clothing appears comfortable and functional. Her headband, too, emphasizes practicality rather than a concern with looks.

All in all, judging by how Jade dresses, I would venture that Jade regards her body as a tool, and as long as that tool functions properly, it serves her well and she is happy with it.

And her body is very important for the progress of the game.

Beyond the Physical: Jade the Framer

The opening of the game establishes (in a comical way) Jade's poor economic status. In fact, Jade belongs to several lower-status groups, assuming that Hillys does not differ too much from modern first-world countries:

1. She is a woman (assuming Hillys is patriarchal).
2. She is young (the website states 20; playing the game, I guessed 18 or so).
3. She is poor.

Because Hillys operates under a capitalist system (and the market stalls and businesses in and around the Pedesterian District all suggest it is), Jade bears the stigma (and implied ineffectual position) of poverty.

Not that the game makes much of it; there's no self-pitying on Jade's part, and a chipper, determined can-do attitude about her. It all serves to emphasize the power imbalance between her and the powers that control Hillys. Those powers are militaristic and governmental, but there is a great degree of slippage between the two. Jade battling Domz alien.

Jade's use of the camera (obstensibly to earn money, later to effect political change) is obviously signficant. She is the framer of this tale. Either somebody's been reading Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (see opening chapters) or I'm reading too much into this. But the camera does position Jade as the looker - and not the "looked-at".

Conlusion

While the writers and developers of this game adhered to some traditional gender roles, for the most part these elements are underplayed. Instead, Jade's agency is emphasized. This positions Beyond Good & Evil as a subtley—and not so subtley—feminist game. The feminism is through the back door.

Related links:

• Beyond Good & Evil Official Website
• Girls & Game Ads series, Part 1 & Part 2, by Andrea Rubenstein, Official Shrub.com blog

Note: I meant to incorporate Nietzshe but never got around to it. Incidentally, both entries at Wikipedia for Beyond Good and Evil and Friedrich Nietzche need polishing up and expansion. If you're knowledgeable in these areas, please consider contributing.

People ask, "does life begin at conception?" Is the this a religious question? Scientific? Moral one? One of property rights? Who decides and to what end? Is governmental regulation needed? Required?

Governments pass laws about human reproduction. They have done so for years - perhaps since the beginning of history. We look around our own back yard, so to speak. Today, in many states, it is illegal for first cousins to have children. In the case of "Baby-M," a few years back, a court ruled that biological parents have higher standing than did the parents the child bonded with during the first several years of life. Going back a bit, it was illegal in some states for people of different races to marry. There were laws during slavery as to who "owned" a child born to a woman who in turn was owned by a slave master.

Government's role in human reproduction is well established, although it has shifted with time and technology. In the blatant example of slavery, when slavery was outlawed, a shift in perception took place as well, but not entirely and the laws around miscegenation suggests that latent racist attitudes still held sway.

Popular morality is often not in step with science. Notions about the world can threaten man's views. Galileo Galilee's views did not square with the church. Some time would pass before his theories were accepted. Fundamentalists still fight against the teaching of evolution, although phylobiology seems to have settled the matter in favor of Darwin.

The human genome project has given people a lot to ponder. The means of human reproduction have shifted. In the last century a great deal of effort was expended in preventing pregnancies. There was also the beginnings toward the end of the century in inducing pregnancy. As Harvard Professor, Deborah Spar, quipped: through science we can have sex without pregnancy. Now we can have pregnancy without sex.

In this century human cloning is possible. Legislatures in many parts of the world pass laws against it. There are also places where stem cell research is banned. There are places where fetal remnants are governed or banned. One example where the line is straddled is the human placenta, loaded with stem cells and other goodies, that many an affluent parent(s) "blood bank" for the infant. If a sibling suffering from a fetal disease needs biological material from a sibling, is that something the government needs to become involved in, or even to ban?

There is/was a law on the books in Massachusetts that a medical procedure cannot be performed on a child that would leave the child less well off. However, in one case, a child needed a kidney and the sibling was an ideal match for a kidney transplant. The Court found that the donor child would be less well off if she did not donate the kidney, in that her sister would die without it, and the surviving sister would have to deal with the sorrow and possibly guilt of that death.

In the abstract, rules about conception, and when life begins, seem simple enough to make, but as we get closer to the reality, deciding what is right takes on proportions of the Wisdom of Solomon.

There is a disease called Franconi Anemia that strikes children. It is nearly always fatal. The child can often be saved if a healthy blood donor that is a match can be found and medical steps taken. Often the best donor is a sibling. What parents have done in such cases is to have as many children in succession as possible, racing against the clock to save the afflicted child - hoping a child is born that is a tissue match. What if science can intervene during the early stages and figure out which zygote (sperm-egg joining) has the best chance of producing a child that is a good match and tissue donor? What should public policy be?

There may be impregnated eggs that will not produce a child that is a good tissue match. What should the fate be of these eggs? Should government step forward? One popular view is that since not all the eggs will be brought to term, none should be. It is not realistic to think that all the eggs will be implanted into infertile women. Thus, the parent(s) have to "roll the dice," so to speak and take their chances Yet in all this, we ask, is the public good served by this?

Some will argue that it is a slippery slope from saving a precious baby to eugenics. Today we save a child - tomorrow we make monsters. A compelling argument given the horrors we saw in the last century, yet science and popular understanding are not in sync, here. It is now possible to check our own genetic predisposition to diseases. The human genome projects rolls on as the science of bioinformatics makes genetic determinations ever easier. A predisposition for diseases is now part of medical testing. Certain medications will work better with certain diseases. For example, if a person has a wasting disease, and there are three possible medicines, which one do we give, especially if it turns out that in certain individuals only one works while the other two do not? If time is of the essence, would it not be good to find out which of the three should be used first? This is not science fiction. This is happening today.

Pharmaceutical firms are cutting down the time and cost of developing new drugs because the drugs can be better tailored to the job. Fewer people (although some) would be against this kind of medical research. But take that a step further. Since genetic predispositions can be now determined, will we now bring our genetic profiles out when we get ready to mate?

If sperm and egg can be looked at individually in some future laboratory, will we have satisfied "morality" by not joining sperm and egg until these have been properly selected under a "microscope" and then intermingled at the right moment?

Whether or not Roe should be overturned hardly gets us anywhere. Human reproduction will undergo startling changes that cannot be fully contained. Certainly these things can be kept away from the poor and underclass, but those with wealth and power will find the means.

We are afraid of creating monsters, but if a child's parent does nothing if a child needs help - who then is the monster.

Where is Salomon when you need him?

Inga Muscio is back with a new book. Personally, I’m not sure that I could be happier about it. Muscio’s first book, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, changed the course of my life. To put it bluntly, Muscio used the power of words to open my consciousness in ways I could never have anticipated. Over time, I have discovered that I am far from the only person who felt this way.

Apparently this is Inga Muscio’s goal and her talent because she has done it again with Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society.

Weaving history, observations, and personal experiences together, Muscio dissects the white supremacist nature in an accessible, painfully honest, and eye-opening manner. Explicitly explaining how racism infiltrates every aspect of life in the United States, Muscio also discusses animal rights and environmental issues, leaving readers with a coherent understanding of the nature of domination.

Sometimes reading this autobiography is painful—Muscio invites and elicits introspection that might hurt. In the end, however, hope is offered and knowledge is gained. This is the kind of pain that leads to improvement and consciousness, and that kind of pain is something that should never be underestimated.

It’s a shame that the resource packet was cut from the final copy of the book. The bright side is that it is available online at Inga Muscio’s website along with excerpts from the book.

All in all, I’d certainly recommend Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil to anyone who is willing (and I mean really willing) to read, understand, and improve.

Count me as one of the many who came to love the bootleg version of Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine." The songs are unlike anything out there -- really interesting stuff. At first blush, the tunes seem rough, almost defiantly so. But as you listen and re-listen -- which is inevitable with those cuts -- you start to realize just how punchy the produced tracks are, with some fabulous drum and bass tracks giving a swing-like groove underneath her vocals. When I heard the tracks, they seemed almost perfect. I could not imagine any additional production that would add anything except obstructions to her voice. The only except I could imagine was big-band orchestration, with saxes, trumpets -- the perfect counterpoint for her jazzy lines that step "outside" more than a few times.

Ever since I heard that Sony was finally going to release the CD, I confess I've been waiting eagerly. Alas, I've not gone out and got it yet --

[Update: I just learned that the new cuts are available online here. It's officially sanctioned, too.]

Sasha Frere-Jones reviews the long-awaited re-mixed and now-officially-released "Extraordinary Machine" in this week's The New Yorker:

Apple’s decision to re-record her third album was hardly remarkable; artists tinker with their tracks all the time. But the rough mixes that she produced with Brion were leaked anonymously on the Internet, where they were widely circulated, putting fans in the unusual situation of being able to choose between two versions of the same record. (In its published form, “Extraordinary Machine� features two recordings from Brion’s original production, nine re-recordings, and one new song, “Parting Gift.�) In fact, the differences matter less than you might think. The songs from Apple’s collaboration with Brion sound as though they were being played on a calliope inside a merry-go-round. Elizondo and Kehew’s arrangements are more bass-heavy and less whimsical. But, whichever version you end up preferring, Apple is in charge: the songs follow her around like a boat on a towline.

I think that tomorrow I need to pop some Motrin, clamber into the car and trundle on down to the store and pick up a copy.

As far as is known, Christ never said anything one-way-or-the-other about homosexuality. Yet, Christians are alarmed by same-sex affection. Well, maybe not all Christians are alarmed by same-sex affection, but there are enough influential and vocal church leaders to create a stir.

These church leaders teach their flocks that Jesus was against gay relations. Since Jesus was mute of the subject of homosexuality, where is the church getting the idea He would not disapprove of men living with one another, without wives? Take for example the Pope who has declared he wants his church to defrock any of its "homosexual" clergy. The Catholic clergy is supposedly celibate, so who is the Pope going to defrock? Why not simply defrock those who cannot keep vows of celibacy?

It goes deeper. Christian scriptures are translated as saying, "If anyone look with lust at a woman, he has already before God committed adultery in his heart." What the Pope is stuck with then is a premise, "If anyone look with lust at a man, he has already before God committed homosexuality in his heart." So the clergy who secretly lust after women are spared while those who secretly lust otherwise are cast out.

But you ask, who cares what the Pope believes, or what a fundamentalist Texas book publisher believes who is a guest on a Focus on the Family radio show? Nonetheless, we should be alarmed by the alarm of certain Christians who want government to step in on the fundamentalist side.

With the Church increasingly holding sway over the State, these attitudes cannot be ignored merely as someone's right to privately worship (or choose not to worship) God in the way they wish. Religious teaching are increasingly getting crafted into enacted legislation and proposed legislation. The legislation is intended to limit the rights of women, gay people, and non-Christians while giving tax breaks to certain "popular" religions and their belief systems. When religion gets involved in conception, who can marry whom, and Christian observances beyond the confines of a church building, a line is being tested and crossed. A war is being adroitly waged on a narrow front, which targets unpopular and not-so-powerful minorities, and a Trojan horse of theocracy is being rolled up to the gates.

So homosexuals are the latest target for a purge - dare I say exorcism? Are clerics on a witch hunt? I wonder.

Recently Christian book publisher, Tommy Nelson, gave his views on homosexuality - although he did slip a couple times and attribute the views to Jesus. Nelson cited the sybarite lusts of King David as proof that heterosexuality is biblically preferred over homosexuality. He suggested women are a "vessel," - a lesser one at that - put on Earth to make babies and to take orders from their husbands. One of Nelson's rhetorical queries about the stability of same-sex partnerships is that no one is in charge and the partners might have to flip a coin on who has to decide something.

Tommy Nelson says God meant men to marry women and to have children - something that neither Jesus nor Benedict XVI are known to have done.

Toward the end of Nelson's exegesis on homosexuality, he equates homosexual relationships with cheating in business, robbery, and other acts that are clearly against the public good and hence are illegal in their own right, religious views notwithstanding. With some pride, Nelson declares his heterosexuality. I declare my heterosexuality as well, but it does not make me better or my marriage better because I chose a partner of the opposite sex.

It is a circular argument to arbitrarily criminalize homosexuality, then to declare homosexuals are criminals, irrespective of any behavior. Certainly the Pope seems to believe that homosexuals have no place in his church. If the Pope went after pedophiles with the same zeal, maybe his church would be in better shape. As it is, a pedophile might be spared under Benedict XVI's purge, provided the pedophile is "heterosexual."

Yet we are left with the fact that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality and while Jesus was mute on this, a lot of scripture is being quoted in His name.

It is not so much about Jesus as it is the prejudices of certain people. I ponder the reasons behind these moves and worry about constitutional protections that are under assault outside of the church.

I tuned into HBO's new series, Rome, hoping that it might fill the void in my TV viewing that the recently-ended Six Feet Under left. I was hopeful for this new series, but I soon turned off, long before I switched off.

"I, Claudius" it ain't...

This program exists to stroke male egos and remind them of a time when they could be all-powerful, especially with regards to women. It will, of course, be compared to the BBC's production of Robert Graves' "I, Claudius", which casts a very long shadow, even though it aired in the U.S. on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre some 27 years ago. HBO consciously plays upon the screen-burn that "I, Claudius" left on the America's collective memory by casting British actors, which creates an air of high art and legitimacy upon the series. (Whenever Hollywood feels wanting in the acting department, it imports British actors.) HBO has positioned the "Rome" series as high entertainment - a majestic, sweeping historical series with ambitions to match, or even surpass, the much-lauded "Six Feet Under", "The Sopranos" and "Deadwood".

But - surprisingly - Rome's extravagant, and no doubt costly, production is hindered by the very elements HBO thought would recommend it. The ability to shoot on location de-emphasizes characterization. There are many "gee-wiz, look at all this historical reality!" type shots. These are all well and good, but there had better be a well-written script to back up the pretty scenes, and in Rome's case, there isn't.

Re-telling the same tired old Tales

What I was particularly non-plussed about was the way women were portrayed. Yes, I know that women were very much a subordinated group in ancient Rome. Yes, I understand that any attempt at a realistic portrayal of women in Rome would reflect their oppressed status. But I didn't think that the cultural conditions of Rome warranted:

• not one, not two, but three different naked women in one episode, all of whom were young and very skinny;
• one woman to position herself in the "doggie" style on a bed for her much older soon-to-be husband to have sex with;
• a long lingering shot of a woman's breast, with large erect nipple, who is about to breast-feed her baby;

Concerning the first item: while I don't object to sex scenes, they were so obviously scripted and directed from a male point of view, that these scenes looked scripted in solely for voyeuristic purposes. And not only were they from a male point of view, catering to a male audience, but they were also tailored to modern-day tastes (gee, the women just happened to be skinny, the current ideal for women today). Moreover, in these scenes, the audience is given very little view of their bodies: the men lay on their backs in bed, surveying (as we are meant to direct our attention) the naked women moving on top. The focus is clearly on the heaving, moving bodies of the naked females.

Concerning the second item: there's nothing inherently wrong with the "doggie style" per se, but the way in which it unfolded was coded in a particularly gross and offensive way. There was a power imbalance between the two characters (one a relatively powerless, inexperienced young women, of high birth, and a much older, much more powerful male character). And then there was the way it unfolded on-screen: we cut from some dialogue between the two very quickly to a shot of her (reluctantly) moving towards the bed, then quickly cut to her form completely naked and frozen in a passive position waiting for the male character to "happen" to her. How humiliating is that? How is that not meant to degrade her, and how are women viewers supposed to feel watching this?

Concerning the third item: again, there's nothing wrong or offensive about showing a character breast-feeding, and it was warranted in the storyline. (Two women discuss the impending war; one is obviously very worried about the effect war will have on her baby.) But the way it was shot was obviously voyeuristic and meant to gratify hetero male eyes: a long, slow shot of her naked (rather perfect, of course!) petite breast, with the baby's head some ways away so as not to disrupt our view of her breast, and a long (not really needed) view of it before the baby's head is finally slowly brought forward to suckle. The nipple is quite erect and quite prominent (which may or may not be realistic, or may just be for erotic purposes).

The other objection I have is the way men talk and treat women. Again - yes, I understand that Rome was a rigid and extreme patriarchy. I understand that men would've spoken in dismissive and hateful terms about women. But it's being trotted out in a way so that the viewers can get off on it. There's a lot of "Do as I say, woman!" type stuff going on, and women being mean and nasty to each other in order to curry favor with the male characters, who hold all the power. There's also some infantilization of women (one young woman yells the cliche line "I hate you!" - what a tired, trite cliche that is of an emotional and powerless woman).

At least "I, Claudius" had the Machiavellian character of Livia, who schemed, killed, maneuvered, and manipulated. She was a formidable character and reeked much havoc, until she was sussed out in the end. In HBO's "Rome", there are no particularly good female characters.

And why did HBO choose to commission a new series based on a historical portrayal of Rome, anyways? Out of all the story ideas they could've run with, why do a series on Rome? I propose that HBO was drawn to the Rome concept because it portrayed a time when men could be all-powerful and had much higher social status than women; when women led dull lives confined to domestic settings, when men did all the interesting things and things of importance, and when men could be ultra-masculine and brutally violent. What a comforting world for the modern-day male who may dislike the advances women have made to step into; what soothing balm "Rome" offers this male viewer, who must deal with women in the workplace and at home who demand equality and respect. What misogyny HBO still has to peddle. And what better things I have to do with my time than watch HBO's "Rome". But then, I doubt I am the target audience HBO is courting with "Rome".

This post contains information about a new fall show, "Commander in Chief," based on television previews currently being broadcast. This post might be considered a spoiler by purists as it addresses the upcoming show.

Our nation has been West Wingized.

It started innocently enough - a screenplay for a romantic comedy called "The President Elopes" gets some solid writing and reemerges as "The American President" with Michael Douglas as Democratic President Andrew Shepherd and Annette Bening as the heart throb. In the literal wings sits A.J. MacInerney, the Chief of Staff, played by Martine Sheen. It is a romantic comedy with serious moments to build the tension and it does so-so with audiences.

And wait; it gets better. The screenwriter of the romantic comedy, Aaron Sorkin, brings it to television. Sheen takes over the job of President, and the series goes from romantic comedy to all serious - with some light moments to break the tension and it is a smash with audiences.

"Nations live out their myths," said a scholar of history. "We elect leaders that embody these myths."

As a viewer, little did I know that when Andrew Shepherd stepped down the hall toward the oval office in "The American President" that the nation would build a new myth and film would impress itself on the political process.

I am not naive enough to think the President's day is not planned down to the quarter-minute. He does not have to deal with sending flowers to his staff for special occasions, busy as he is - his staff can send each other flowers in "His" name. Surely he is the eye of the storm where there is calm.