On PHB, Pam Spaulding asks, “In what universe is the sexual orientation of any judge relevant to ANY case?” A justified question. Of course, it doesn’t matter. What matters is how a judge interprets the constitution, evidence, law, and case precedent.

But what matters in a heterosexist society is that “gay” or “homosexual” is painted as the interested party, and that heterosexual is painted as the objective party — or, more accurately, assumed to be objective because it doesn’t have to be “painted” that way. Not that other issues of difference are “the same,” but we can see a similar response when Sotomayor was going through hearings with Congress: her race mattered. Especially when she mentioned that she would have different experiences with which to interpret cases than others, despite the fact that, if I’m remembering accurately, Alito had said something similar about his own experiences: they mattered in his interpretation. But the fundamental difference, in our cultural imagination, is how close to the center, how privileged, someone is. Someone who is not White, or someone who is not straight, must have an interested opinion, an agenda, a bias of some sort. Straight white men are the ones who can be impartial (excepting, of course, the frequent, almost ubiquitous, accusations of “liberal bias” or “conservative bias”).

The except from the documentary is quite long, but well worth the watch. I think the documentarian makes some valid points at the end of the excerpt, one of which is the necessity to stop calling racists and White nationalists “extremists” and “radicals” and quit mocking them in mainstream media, because it actually harms progressive movements: those who might have sympathies with right-wing movements but might be on the fence won’t listen to progressive activists or advocates because those are the type of people who mock their neighbors and concerns.

Overall, a fantastic and chilling report.

I saw Brüno in the theatres this afternoon, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I mainly went out of curiosity, because I’m fascinating by his over-the-top performances. I heard a lot of concern from folks that this might be the type of movie that’s hilarious for queer folk and allies in different ways than it’s hilarious for a less queer-friendly crowd — in that, the film can be a chance for voyeurism into the oh-so-strange queer world for a straight viewer. Does the movie reinscribe queer-as-spectacle for some viewers? I don’t know.

What I do know is that so much of the movie was already shown in previews that it became predictable and boring. I laughed quite a bit (even uncontrollably and noticeably — those that have gone to movies with me will know that my laugh draws attention from others), but those moments of hysteria were sandwiched by boredom. About half-way into the movie, I just wanted it to be over. I know the movie wasn’t really made for its overall narrative or suspense, but the serial nature of the movie made it a bore when half the jokes were already given away in previews.

I also knew going in that, if anything, I’d walk out feeling hounded by liberal guilt — laughing at jokes that were racist or worried about how the film would portray gay men in the eyes of audiences who might not be gay-friendly. I guess I didn’t laugh enough to walk out feeling guilty about enjoying jokes in the movie. But I did walk out feeling annoyed and disturbed by the film’s reduction of people of color to base stereotypes. An example that probably won’t give much away: at one point, Brüno doesn’t have any furniture in his new home, so he “hires” the Latino employees working on his house to become furniture for his guest. Obviously trying to get the audience to laugh about the way many white people treat Latino laborers, the film seemed to just flop here. I couldn’t laugh at all. As with most parody, the film tried to walk the line of making fun of a situation and reinforce the situation, and the film seemed to just reinforce dehumanization.

I was also annoyed by the regionalism of the film. The most homophobic and religious people were from the South, were people of color, or both. While urban whites often reacted to Brüno’s flamboyancy and explicit sexuality with disgust, it was tolerated. In the South, however, religion and rural “backwardness” made Brüno intolerable. The logic of the movie continues a “balkanization” of the United States where LA is the liberal, open mecca and the South is rural and backward.

But overall, I was underwhelmed.

Some links:
Pandagon: This appears like it’s going to be much worse than even the worst cynic would have predicted
Shira Tarrant at HuffingtonPost: Sonia Sotomayor: The answer rhymes with “fender”
Female Science Professor: Feelings
ThinkProgress: Liddy on Sotomayor and menstruation
Feminist Philosophers: David Brooks has it almost right: Sotomayor again
Feminist Philosophers: The impartial chief justice, on the other hand
Feminist Philosophers: Sotomayor and standpoint theory
Feministe: Alito quote that sounds like Sotomayor’s empathetic, “identity politics” statements
Feminste: Comparing Sonia Sotomayor to Sarah Palin is kind of insulting
Feministing: a variety of links to articles about Sotomayor

Um, what caused those lags in educational attainment and skill acquisition? Oh, that’s right. Institutional racism.

(not to mention the victim blaming)

EDIT: I thought I’d clarify after a few questions on Twitter (where I linked to this post). I think Bradley (the author) dismisses racism, when he should not, because I see racism as an institutional system that needs to be addressed. See Suzanne Pharr’s “The Common Elements of Oppression” reprinted on Eric Stoller’s blog for my understanding of institutional racism. Bradley quickly engages in victim blaming instead of looking at what causes problems in education, crime, drugs, and violence. He has a “pull yourself up the bootstraps mentality” in his essay.

My friend who sat next to me thought they were egotistical or narcissistic, thinking they deserved attention and weren’t giving their attention to the drag queens on stage. Perhaps there is some truth to this statement. But what I saw was a lot less simple than this. Perhaps there is some narcissism in refusing to give the performer on stage full attention. (But perhaps there is more in checking your phone for texts throughout the show?) But the flow of energy in that room wasn’t solely from the traditional deliverer of a message, but rather from her, from the music, from the crowd, and toward all sectors, between “audience” members, and toward the performer.

This queer participation is also raced: most of the dancers were people of color. Most of the docile bodies were white (my own included). I was reminded of an article I read and discussed in a reading group a few years ago about the male gaze and movies. A professor asked what assumptions about movie-going audiences were being made in the article, and we soon realized that the author was assuming a proper, orderly, middle class, white audience—a receptive audience. What about movie theatres with “disruptive” audiences who talk back to movies? What about drag shows where the audience dances instead of watches in the traditional manner? Who really is the performer and the audience?

• Anne-Marie offers some information literacy tools for synonyms

• Matt offers some tools for annotated websites

• Matt also shares some videos about Twitter. This one on ambient intimacy is especially interesting.

• Irene Monreo at Bilerico: Gay is NOT the new black

• Feministe on the Rolling Stone article that blames gay organizing for Prop 8′s passing

• The Valve: Kugelmass believes it’s a mistake for Composition to be merged with Rhetoric. I disagree, but don’t have time or energy to write something. Perhaps once I’m in Iowa.

This video might be useful to show in a composition course to lead to discussions of how writers represent Others in their compositions — or, in another way, contribute to constructions of Others in the American imagination. Feminist Philosophers has some comments:

• The film doesn’t even hint at the fact that there are problems with hunger and starvation around the world.

• The subjects are getting the worst in American food values.
• The subjects, many of whom appear to be dressed in special ”‘traditional dress” are presented often as oddities with whom one cannot identify. You know that problem: people are treated as means, not ends.
• AND, who ever had the idea that the best judges are completely inexperienced? This is the American myth that gave us Sarah Palin. Seriously, whose view of a restaurant would you trust: someone who has been to a lot or someone who has been to none before?
• And then there’s the phrase, “Whopper Virgin.” Snicker, snicker.

But to this list we might add:

• The Other as “more natural,” more pure (“virgins”), pre-cultural, less-than-civilized (“off the grid”)

• Because they are closer to natural, the Other as having more access to Universal Taste
• The Americans as bringing civilization, as charitable
• The Other as object of voyeurism, as subject to be observed and watched with intrigue

I wish I had spent more time this term on how writers represent others in their writing — word choice, representation, and such. We did spend time on how to summarize and give voice to claims or arguments you disagree with, which seemed to be much more successful (in student writing) than I had anticipated. However, there have been a few moments in student writing that I hadn’t anticipated, the most obvious being calling people of color “colored people.”

Another thing that surprised me: A student writing that American black slavery occurred up until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. I’ve seen this assumption from white students at Oregon State, so I don’t know why I was surprised in this instance, but nevertheless, I am always surprised by this.

EDIT: Sociological Images also discusses the video, calling attention to the framing of people as “outside of things” — which is an ethnocentric concept of “things” that matter. Additionally, they call attention to the framing of the video as a documentary, and what the effects of this might be.

• Rhosa at Blogora quotes PSU’s Graham Spanier’s Chronicle column from a few weeks ago, “Is Campus Activism Dead — or Just Misguided?”

• NY Times: Did you hear the one that Sarah Palin thought all of Africa is a continent? Well, it’s probably a hoax from a fake think take. Check out this article.

• It’s about time someone told Bible stories with Legos!

• Lots of folks have been talking about the professor who shamed his students by posting about their plagiarism on his blog. Eek! A pedagogy of shame is not good in my book. Joseph Orosco takes up the topic, and the teacher offers a defense in the comments as well.

• I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while now, but Ralph Nader’s use of “uncle tom” a while back is interesting, because it sparked a debate between a friend and me about his word choice. I think it was definitely a poor word choice, because people ignored his ideas. But I won’t go into detail, because I’m just shooting links out here. (Also, I don’t like the way Faux News frames the whole thing, either.)

• Silverton, Oregon, elected trans mayor Stu Rasmussen: KGW Portland, KTVB Idaho, Fox News, Feminist Philosophers.

• Telegraph: “Councils ban ‘elitist’ and ‘discriminatory’ Latin phrases”

• Rhetoric gets stabbed again. Stanley Fish, in chastising psychology for taking so long to stop supporting torture, calls psychology the heir of rhetoric, where “The emphasis is not on what is true, but on what works, what gets results even if the results are obtained by torture. If the testimony you are citing has been elicited by torture, just say that ‘it was in order to discover the truth that our ancestors wished to make use of torture.’”