once upon a time I wrote long posts about single subjects.

[eruthros]

1. Oh my god, they got Jewel Staite too?

For those keeping track, they also snagged Torri Higginson. And David Hewlett. Again.

2. Does anybody know why Icerocket doesn't index dreamwidth? And whether there's any way to get them to? I like to use icerocket as a casual search tool, but I want it to find DW posts too!

3. thingswithwings and I started to watch Fringe. We quite liked the pilot, with a few reservations, but then the second episode was all guess-what-the-camera-finds-women-being-killed-erotic. And I just can't take that anymore, no matter how interesting the characters or plots or whatever. So, friends who watch Fringe, does the show change? Was that a moment of complete screw-up that they backed off from? Or is it a show that I can't watch?

4. I find this Gloria Brame post about bondage as performance art really intriguing! It's just a little snippet, though.

5. Don't you hate it when you see an image on someone's blog without citation, and then you've got no idea when or where it's from? Well, I found one of those images, and I'd love to see the context of it.

So! Long shot and all, but can anybody tell me where this is from, or maybe a better way to google for it, or a reference book that might help me out?



6. Today I am using my Mythbusters icon because Mythbusters is back! Hurrah hurrah hurrah! thingswithwings and I ran out of Mythbusters a month ago, and since then we've only been able to rewatch things. But now! New Mythbusters! It is like an early birthday present for ME.

Comments

[damned_colonial]

Try http://www.tineye.com/ for your image searching needs!

[eruthros]

... that is an awesome tool. It didn't find this picture, but ... amazing!

here via my network

[allchildren]

Re: Fringe, it's very much not a perfect show but the episode you describe is pretty much a one-off. Here's an interesting discussion of objectification and not in Fringe (slight spoilers but nothing very specific/plotty).

Re: here via my network

[eruthros]

Ah, thanks for the link! I don't mind gore, but I really can't deal with the camera objectification thing, so I'm glad to see that 1x02 was the worst of it!

[livrelibre]

I'm definitely in favor of the SG-1 sacrifice idea but I'm upgrading that to general pact with the Unholy One for all midlist actors. Lance Henriksen, Lauren Holly, Misha Collins, Peter Wingfield and Hill Harper? Some of the them are scifi vets sure, but all of them? Conspiracy!

Also, I hate it when people don't cite.

Early happy birthday!

[eruthros]

Oh, absolutely, if your show has even been in syndication on the SyFy channel you're screwed. Or I guess if you've just been too close to people who have been on SyFy. It is TOTALLY a conspiracy!

Also: YES. Citation is IMPORTANT guys.

[blushingflower]

I do not know where that picture is from, but now I really want to.

Also, your theory about the SyFy channel movies is disturbingly plausible (and hilarious)

[eruthros]

It's such a great picture! I really want to know the context.

[rheanna]

I personally enjoy Fringe, and don't find it to be a show that systematically eroticizes violence against women. Which is not to say it's perfect, but it has several points in its favour, most notably the way Olivia is treated. Olivia is the lead; she drives the plots and the show doesn't give in to the temptation to put her in danger so a male character can rescue her (on the one big occasion in season one she is at risk and vulnerable, she pretty much rescues herself). Olivia gets what would traditionally be the 'male' heroic role and personality traits: she is very focused on her work, she doesn't open up emotionally easily to others (although she's not cold: we see evidence of a strong, close relationship with her sister and niece in season 1, and she definitely comes to care about Peter and Walter). Peter, meanwhile, is presented as more empathetic and he's the character whose key role is being carer to a relative, ie, a more stereotypically 'female' role. And even when the show starts to give Peter a more physical, action-y role in plots, it doesn't start prioritising him over Olivia.

Fringe is by no means perfect, but it gets better as it goes along and the second season has been consistently fairly strong -- for eg, season 2 makes far better use of Astrid than season 1.

YMMV, of course. I was a big X Files fan back in the day, and part of the reason I rather like Fringe is that it gives me a nice sense of nostalgia for the things I liked about XF when I was first into it -- creepy goings on and nicely understated UST between the leads.

[eruthros]

I love creepy goings-on, and UST, and I loved the X-Files -- though I bet if I went back and watched it now I would find the eroticized violence creepy. Basically, I'm pretty good at dealing with abduction and gore and whatever, but I just can't deal with "When Men Kill Women It's HOT!"

Also I am glad to hear that about Astrid, because in the first couple episodes she was mostly in the background!

[anatsuno]

I'm with rheanna on Fringe - I watch it for the characters (couldn't care less about the plots, yes, including the mytharc - except in what it does or implies betweent he characters) and I find that they're consistently well treated, and the women tend to come out on top. I'm particularly happy about the way Astrid got her role increased this season.

I had the same problem you had with the early episode - I showed it to my brother as an example of revoltingly easy and common sexist tropes in actiony stuff.. But as that post allchildren linked to says, it changed quickly. I wouldn't guarantee you're going to be okay with it; I really don't know. But I've found it a lot less fail-y than I expected it to be.

[eruthros]

That is good! I'm glad to hear that the show at least partly abandons that gaze.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

That picture puts me in mind of Farzana Doctor's novel Stealing Nasreen, which is about Gujarati-Canadians; one of the characters has an antique miniature painting from home of a rani and her maid-servant, who are implied (much more subtly) to have an erotic connection. (The book suggests that the figures in the painting are sentient and commenting on the action, willing one of the characters to come out as a lesbian; on the other hand the whispers she hears might be a psychological projection, but I would vote for option one.)

As far as reference books go, I would recommend checking out some of Ruth Vanita's edited collections; she has several about the representations of same-sex desire in India that have very good historic (including ancient and medieval) sources. (This is just a guess, as the drawing style seems very South Asian to me, but I bet it's a lot more specific in terms of region and time period, and I could be wrong.) I've heard her speak and I think she's very smart; I believe her work nicely deconstructs the whole Foucault "homosexuality was invented in the West in the 19th c" argument, which I have minimal patience for, with a lot of evidence for India have a discourse and words for same-sex sexuality going back for thousands of years.

The picture also makes me think of some of the women-with-dildos pictures painted on Greek wine-vases from around 500 BCE; Bernadette J. Brooten's Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (ignore the subtitle--it's a brilliant book that looks at the pagan Roman & Jewish contexts in depth before addressing the Christian one) has pictures and some discussion; Martin F. Kilmer's Greek Erotica in Attic Red-Figure Vases treats the subject in more depth, I think, but I haven't read him.

[eruthros]

Oh, cool! I will check out Ruth Vanita, plus those other collections you mention. Thanks so much!

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Glad to help--and especially if it involves recommending books! Please let me know what you find; it's such an intriguing picture.