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i know the place, and i'm going home.
Two exams in the last week; neither of them were all that taxing, but I was pretty sure they wouldn't be. Not that I didn't study for them anyway, of course, even if it was kind of tedious. Especially the stuff for Bio, my god. :P I learned about ionic and covalent bonds in, like, middle school.
The past two classes of Cross-Cultural Communication, we've been watching Where the Spirit Lives, which was very satisfying in some ways and a little disappointing in others. (Today's title lyric comes from the end credits song, I'm Going Home, by the lovely Buffy Sainte-Marie.) Initially, I thought the movie was going to be entirely from the point of view of Ashtohkomi. I was half right, and wish I had been completely right, because I think it would have been stronger to see the residential school entirely through Komi's eyes. The moment Kathleen, the Only White Woman With A Conscience, showed up, I knew the movie was going to end up being half about her, so that all of the white people watching it would be able to reassure themselves ("that's the kind of white person I am!"). Same kind of goes for Taggart; I was fully ready to frickin' hate him, luring children into his plane with candy canes, and then suddenly he did a Heel Face Turn and became The Other White Person With A Conscience. I mean, I guess I'm glad he did, because somebody needed to give Buckley a talking-to, and Kathleen sure wasn't gonna do it, but.
I think I feel a little bit better about the way they handled the Psycho Lesbian lady who kept sexually assaulting Rachel; it seemed to me like they made it relatively obvious that she had serious issues, and that she abruptly felt the weight of her part in Rachel's death, without ever trying to make her seem truly sympathetic. Which is, of course, good, because she did horrible things. (It reminded me a bit of Dollhouse, in a way; that one episode where they almost, almost had me feeling sorry for the guy who bought Echo to be his dead SO, and then Ballard brought it back to, "... and then you rape her.")
Also, I don't think this is what they were trying for, but I was about ready to smack Kathleen by the end. I was delighted that she asked Komi for forgiveness, that she didn't imply that because she was The Only White Woman With A Conscience, she was completely absolved of guilt - I took it as a request for overall forgiveness, and not just for forgiveness over the lie of omission about Komi's family. And then ... she ruined it by making Komi take her Bibles. I mean, did she learn nothing from all of this? **tears hair** It's not specific to Christianity, I would be just as annoyed if the majority of Canada were Muslim and she had made Komi take the Qu'ran, or whatever other example you like; the whole point of the movie was that forcing ... well, any culture, but specifically majority culture, on people who neither want nor need it is A BAD IDEA. Making Komi take along a relic of that culture, specifically one that she can't help but associate with the extremely traumatic situation that she was currently fleeing from is just ... wow. Anyway. It was good, and Michelle St. John was brilliant, and I'm glad I watched it; but I think there were some ways that it could have been better.
B is, as always, annoying me. She got very upset not an hour and a half ago about the number of people her boyfriend has slept with, and followed up a complaint about how "slut" gets applied to women with a) calling him a slut, and b) mere moments ago, looking at a picture and saying something about the "slutty women" in it. I facepalmed so hard I almost knocked my eyeballs out.
I tried to talk to her about it a little bit, and while she certainly does understand the double-standard applied to men and women as regards sexual experience, her solution is not to think critically about why exactly our culture is so devoted to ... sex-negativity? but rather to slut-shame the male and female sexes equally. Needless to say, not quite the conclusion I was hoping for. So that was a fun talk.
At least The Daily Show's been good lately. That Moment of Zen with the lady talking about sex ed, and sounding so aghast about the idea of people explaining to kids that masturbation feels good? ... I lol'd.
The past two classes of Cross-Cultural Communication, we've been watching Where the Spirit Lives, which was very satisfying in some ways and a little disappointing in others. (Today's title lyric comes from the end credits song, I'm Going Home, by the lovely Buffy Sainte-Marie.) Initially, I thought the movie was going to be entirely from the point of view of Ashtohkomi. I was half right, and wish I had been completely right, because I think it would have been stronger to see the residential school entirely through Komi's eyes. The moment Kathleen, the Only White Woman With A Conscience, showed up, I knew the movie was going to end up being half about her, so that all of the white people watching it would be able to reassure themselves ("that's the kind of white person I am!"). Same kind of goes for Taggart; I was fully ready to frickin' hate him, luring children into his plane with candy canes, and then suddenly he did a Heel Face Turn and became The Other White Person With A Conscience. I mean, I guess I'm glad he did, because somebody needed to give Buckley a talking-to, and Kathleen sure wasn't gonna do it, but.
I think I feel a little bit better about the way they handled the Psycho Lesbian lady who kept sexually assaulting Rachel; it seemed to me like they made it relatively obvious that she had serious issues, and that she abruptly felt the weight of her part in Rachel's death, without ever trying to make her seem truly sympathetic. Which is, of course, good, because she did horrible things. (It reminded me a bit of Dollhouse, in a way; that one episode where they almost, almost had me feeling sorry for the guy who bought Echo to be his dead SO, and then Ballard brought it back to, "... and then you rape her.")
Also, I don't think this is what they were trying for, but I was about ready to smack Kathleen by the end. I was delighted that she asked Komi for forgiveness, that she didn't imply that because she was The Only White Woman With A Conscience, she was completely absolved of guilt - I took it as a request for overall forgiveness, and not just for forgiveness over the lie of omission about Komi's family. And then ... she ruined it by making Komi take her Bibles. I mean, did she learn nothing from all of this? **tears hair** It's not specific to Christianity, I would be just as annoyed if the majority of Canada were Muslim and she had made Komi take the Qu'ran, or whatever other example you like; the whole point of the movie was that forcing ... well, any culture, but specifically majority culture, on people who neither want nor need it is A BAD IDEA. Making Komi take along a relic of that culture, specifically one that she can't help but associate with the extremely traumatic situation that she was currently fleeing from is just ... wow. Anyway. It was good, and Michelle St. John was brilliant, and I'm glad I watched it; but I think there were some ways that it could have been better.
B is, as always, annoying me. She got very upset not an hour and a half ago about the number of people her boyfriend has slept with, and followed up a complaint about how "slut" gets applied to women with a) calling him a slut, and b) mere moments ago, looking at a picture and saying something about the "slutty women" in it. I facepalmed so hard I almost knocked my eyeballs out.
I tried to talk to her about it a little bit, and while she certainly does understand the double-standard applied to men and women as regards sexual experience, her solution is not to think critically about why exactly our culture is so devoted to ... sex-negativity? but rather to slut-shame the male and female sexes equally. Needless to say, not quite the conclusion I was hoping for. So that was a fun talk.
At least The Daily Show's been good lately. That Moment of Zen with the lady talking about sex ed, and sounding so aghast about the idea of people explaining to kids that masturbation feels good? ... I lol'd.