Dom Harvey is a coward.

There has been a lot of back and forth about the stupidity of Dom Harvey taking still frames of a woman dancing in order to get a photo of her knickers/three pairs of stockings/leotard.

First things first. Most performers don’t get to choose their costumes. If they do try to, they get labeled difficult. Any performer knows this. So slut shaming someone for an outfit they don’t chose is a pretty low hit.

Secondly, in order to see ANYTHING of a smutty level in a dance outfit there would have to be a serious malfunction. When I was dancing I wore a g string, then my skin tone tights, then my costume undies, then, then fishnets or costume tights, then my leotard or skirt. Sorry to ruin the day of the losers responsible for this being an actual thing on google search

But you aren’t gonna see anything, no matter how much time you waste re watching and freezing shots to take pics. Creep.

My next point has not been covered yet as far as I can see. There has been a lot of discussion about what is and isn’t funny and who is and isn’t public property, and what parts of a woman’s body are and aren't ok to view if it is already “out there”. But there has been no mention of the cowardice involved.

Cowardice? What? This was a quick joke. He picked the only obvious target right?

 She was the only appropriate target... the only woman wearing a dress short enough to catch a glimpse of her knickers as she executed a lift or jump. The only person who would be suitable for this “Joke”.
Well GOLLY. If only there was a woman there dancing incredibly with her legs in the air in a similar fashion on the same show, on that same night. A woman with media power, a woman with the power to change people’s careers because she is well connected. A woman who if she didn’t like the joke could really mess with Dom Harvey’s future. A woman with the Queen’s service medal.

  *cough*.

If only such a woman existed, Dom Harvey could have used her as his target and proved his claims of humor, punching up, and showing that he takes the mickey out of everyone, no matter how powerful. If only there were such a woman, the joke might work. It wouldn’t be a pathetic little perve taking the mickey out of a woman who has so little control out of her image that this may be the one thing she is remembered for.

If he had used Candy, the joke still wouldn’t be a good one, it would still be creepy as hell. But if she has the power to respond without the entirety of New Zealand media shitting on her, that would be a start right??

Pity there was no other woman he could have chosen… then people might have noticed what a coward he was.

My whole life I've been dressing up

I'm going to try something a little different, and review a TV series. 
Disclaimer: Transparent is about a white upper-class Jewish trans woman, Maura, coming out when her children are adults.  Since I'm atheist and cis, I'm sure my understanding of some things will miss the mark so please jump in for discussion/correction in comments.  Second disclaimer:  I don't watch a whole heap of tv or movies. Sometimes when my very clever friends talk about tv I don't understand them.  So this will be unsophisticated.

Transparent came out last year, winning awards and critical admiration, including from trans activists.  Early on in the show Maura comes out to her eldest daughter Sarah, who asks "Does this mean you're going to be dressing up like a woman?"

There's some reaching out to other trans* folks from Maura that speaks clearly to why we need support groups and retreats and safe places for all trans and gender diverse people.  One of the scenes I found most painful was a summer camp Maura attended years earlier for transfeminine people.  Camp members are describing someone being kicked out of the camp for using hormones.  "This is a camp for men," they heartily agree, "men who like to dress as women!"  Maura is visibly uncomfortable, and it feels like she's finding out that even that space - which she has been experiencing, until then, as joyful and full of wonder - may not be safe.

There are other painful slices of transphobia. Maura enters a women's bathroom with her daughters, who assure her it will be fine, despite her obvious discomfort.  They call her "Dad", which leads to other women in the toilet misgendering Maura and telling her she must leave.  Sarah's rage - which no doubt you'd feel - explodes and worsens the situation and Maura slinks away, finding an empty construction site portaloo she can safely use.  A good reminder to cis allies that the most important way to support someone is to make sure you respect what they want whether you understand why or not, because getting it wrong might well be dangerous.

The show is ostensibly about Maura, but actually we spend just as much time, if not more, watching her painfully self-involved children.  I'm assuming this is supposed to show the whole gamut of reactions to Maura transitioning, but it's hard to read her family's behaviour as having anything to do with her.  They are all complete train-wrecks, and while their indifference to Maura's feelings is horrific at times, it's how they treat everyone.  Sarah and Josh don't care when their mother's partner of many years, who seems to have dementia, disappears.  Josh scares his first girlfriend in the show so much she asks his boss to keep him away from her, though he thinks he's showing her love.  Ali's best friend tells her at one point that Ali's been making her feel awful for years.  I'm not sure the nuances of transphobia are well-served by this, though it's frequently good drama.

There's an argument over whether we should be interested or emotionally moved by what's going on in Maura's family anyway.  For many, shifting the focus from the person most vulnerable to structural oppression - Maura - might not be ok.  And it's a story we're more familiar with, right?  How cis people feel about trans* folks.

When I came out as bisexual I sent my mother books by and about queer women for every birthday and Christmas for a decade.  Good books, by Alice Walker and Lisa Alther and Jackie Kay and Sarah Schulman and Joan Barfoot and Marge Piercy....She read them, swapped them with friends.  I thought I was helping my mum see my life.  Years later, she thanked me for sending her books "about how other parents coped with having queer children."  I said I didn't think that's what they'd been about.  She was surprised.  I think, in a way, we were both right.

So while I'm much more interested in seeing Maura and her story being told than I am in another story about cis people, I feel disappointed that so far Transparent, in my opinion, has dodged telling the stories of her children's engagement with a transitioning parent with any depth, simply because they're all such self-involved jerks.

Maura's youngest daughter, Ali, changes her gender presentation quite dramatically during the show.  By the end, she's been wearing masculine clothes for a couple of episodes and has a much more androgenous haircut.  Some reviewers suggests this happens without commentary to juxtaposition how easy it is for women to play with presenting in a masculine way compared with the frequent and difficult reactions Maura gets to her transition.

I find this troubling.  While it's not helpful to play oppression olympics, the idea that there is no cost for women expressing masculinity is very different to my experience.  I've presented in a range of ways across my life, and spent lots of my early twenties looking pretty much like any stereotype of a sporty butch queer women you've ever seen.  During that period I was frequently asked to leave women's toilets, verbally and physically threatened by men, called "it" by men, asked if I was confused by men, told all I needed was a "good fuck" by men.  At one family gathering, the partner of one of my cousins drunkenly asked me "what are you?"  I think he was confused by my shaved head and breasts, they make bogans a little basic in Christchurch.  One of my friends, a beautiful butch, was recently so frightened about a road trip to the States and the violence she might experience there that we spent lots of time pre-planning safe stops, based on their LGBTIQ friendliness.

You get the point.  Maybe Ali's demographic cope much better with androgenous presentations.  But simply pretending there's no issue feels dishonest to me.
  
I'd be remiss, dear reader, if I didn't comment on The Biphobia.  Again.  Sarah's married life is turned upside down when she meets an ex-lover who's a woman.  So she does what every Bisexual should, and Cheats on her partner.  With the Other Gender.  Oh, and she tries to do it again later, after she's left her husband for the sexy ex, when she's hiding in the laundry with her husband.  Us Bisexuals, can't help with the Cheating.  We're just always wanting all of the genders, all of the time.  In case you're not sure this storyline is actually a thing, just cast your mind back to Orange is the New Black's central bi character, Piper, who um, does exactly the Same Cheating Bisexual Thing.

Actually maybe Sarah's not Bisexual.  It's not like that word is ever mentioned, for goodness sake. Towards Sarah or the other character who has relationships with more than one gender.  Because Biphobia.  Again.

There's been much commentary about the fact that a cis man, Jeffrey Tambor, is playing Maura.  He's wonderful in the role, and clearly an ally, plus I suspect an actor of his calibre may have significantly increased the chances of Transparent being made in the first place.  Some people have suggested it's marginally more acceptable to have a cis man playing a trans woman because Maura is beginning her transition.

This seems like slightly ridiculous transphobia to me.  Are we really saying a trans actress, assigned male at birth, wouldn't be able to pull off playing a trans woman pre-transition?  Whereas a cis man can pull off playing a woman?

We've seen similar arguments recently to justify non-disabled actors playing disabled characters.  As with white actors playing Black characters, all of these casting decisions reveal discrimination - an assumption that people (which people?) will identify more readily with able-bodied people, with white people, with cis people.

If cripping up and blacking up are unacceptable, so is transing up.  Cis people playing trans characters speaks to centring of cis experience even when a trans story is being told, and it needs to stop.  It's great to see a variety of other roles in Transparent are played by trans actors, and a trans woman is joining the writing staff for season two.  On the subject, it's no surprise to me that the central character here is white and middle-class.  I wonder if we'll see any intersectionality in season two, an exploration perhaps of the rates at which trans women, especially trans women of colour, are targetted for lethal violence?

These reservations aside, Transparent is a good watch.  The writing is tight, the acting superb.  Much as I might dislike Maura's children, watching them behave badly is a bit like watching an election result you're not happy about - it's hard to look away.  Gender and sexuality themes are everywhere.  Seeing a multiplicity of transfeminine and one transmasculine (to date) characters is a treat.  Maura may not be able to tell every transfeminine story - who could? - but she normalises a particular kind of trans experience for a mainstream audience.  We need more stories which do that, if we want to end transphobia.

masterchef fail

i've written many times over the years about masterchef - it's one of the few reality tv programmes i enjoyed watching.  and i tend to like the australian version more than the others, mostly because i really like the way they've done diversity in the past.

however.  i'm suddenly liking masterchef australia a whole lot less, and this promo would be why:



"destroy the joint" have decided to campaign against the ad & i really hope they get some traction.  the poll at the bottom of this article (if we can give any credence to this kind of poll) shows an overwhelming majority of people thinking the ad is sexist, which is probably more a result of the DtJ campaign than anything else.

but what's worrying is that some marketing/advertising people somewhere thought that this campaign was somehow a good idea.  i bet they're related to the people who thought up the latest stupid beer commercial airing on tv, which i'm not going to bother to describe further because it just makes me feel sick.

while it was great to see marvel withdraw their sexist t-shirts, sometimes it seems like a small win in an overwhelming tide of awfulness.  nonetheless, if you have the energy, here is the masterchef facebook page where you can register your views about this particular campaign.  given that they've been so open to diversity, maybe they can get around to stamping out the sexism in this particular ad.

in defence of the ridges

seeing as i have been going through some heavy stuff lately, i thought it was time for a lighter pop culture post.  pretty out-of-date, i know, but it's been sitting at the back of my mind waiting to get out & now is as good a time as any.

i remember all the times i've written on this blog about my antipathy towards reality television.  i mostly can't be bothered with it, mostly because there seems to be a lot of hostility & nastiness involved in the competitive aspects of reality tv shows, and i don't have the patience for that.  i did manage to sit through one whole series of american idol, i can't even remember why.  and of course i'm a well known masterchef fan.  but that has generally been it, when it comes to me & reality tv shows.

so you would think that "the ridges" is not a show that would particularly appeal to me.  never watched the osbornes or the kardashians or any other shows that concentrated on the lives of a particular group of families.  it just sounded so boring, i've never even made an attempt to sit through 5 minutes of it.  not that i'm judging people who are into that stuff, just saying that it really doesn't appeal to me.

and i can't say i'm a fan of sally or jamie ridge.  since i avoid women's mags & entertainment sections, i'm blissfully unaware of the gossip.  some of that stuff does spill over into "the news" though, so i can't say i was unaware that sally ridge split up with matthew ridge, and hooked up with adam parore, and then that was all over too.  and i was dimly aware that sonny bill williams had been going out with jaime ridge at some point, but i didn't even know what she looked like until i watched the show.

so why did i bother watching?  the hook for me was that this was a programme centred on women and women's experiences.  sure, many of those experiences come under the category of "first world problems", and essentially the show is yet another one focusing on the lives of people of privilege.  but even so, i think what kept me watching the show was the really strong mother-daughter relationship and the way these two women were so supportive of each other.  i really don't think that we get to see enough of positive female relationships on our screens.

i also found it interesting to see the pressure on jaime ridge to be super-sexy, when it wasn't how she wanted to portray herself.  i thought it was great that she fought back as much as she could, and tried her best to assert her own boundaries, with the support of people around her. i did hate that people were criticising her for being prepared to model underwear while not being prepared to wear skimpy clothing for the fight for life promotions.  as if she doesn't have the right to choose in each instance what she's comfortable with.  it reminds me way too much of women who are deemed to have a bad reputation for one action, which somehow makes them fair game for the rest of their lives.  it's total nonsense.

the whole weight-loss thing was pretty bad as well.  although i can see it was a requirement for a fair fight in the fight for life thing, it was still handled badly by the people responsible for her training.

clearly these are not perfect people (but who is?), and they deliberately put their lives into the public arena where they knew they would be judged.  that's beyond celebrities being photographed without their consent, or having their personal stuff splashed across the tabloids.  this was a case of informed consent, and so there is a much stronger case of saying that we have every right to be judgmental about this duo.

but even so, some of the judginess sounds incredibly misogynistic to me.  i really couldn't believe that 7 days were willing to run a clip of some random guy calling them "skanks", and it seems to me that there has been too much criticism of that nature ie criticising the show because it focuses on women's lives and centres on the things that concern women. i'm not saying the show doesn't deserve criticism, as there were a few things that made me feel uncomfortable, but they don't deserve to be criticised just for being women who live their lives, and pretty successfully by the looks of it.

if there's going to be a season two, i'm not sure that i'll watch it.  but i certainly don't regret watching season 1, and i think there was some use in seeing the kinds of pressures that women are subjected to.  and while i still can't say i'm a fan, i can say that i wish both of them well.

yet another blow to public service broadcasting

if you have freeview or sky, you may have been a fan of the stratos channel. i started watching it when it was finally available on freeview. it's a channel that is for television what community access radio is for radio broadcasting. in other words, it's a way for minority communities to have access to media, and to put out views, information or other programming that is of interest to those communities, and often in a language other than english.

stratos is now off air:

We simply have not had the support we were seeking – despite a growing audience of more than one million and reaching the stage where AC Nielsen were able to include us in the TARPS audience ratings,” he says.

“It is hugely disappointing because New Zealand is a country where 25% of the population are new New Zealanders and providing a window to the world helps develop understanding in our communities.

“Stratos was founded on the principles of recognised public broadcasting. We could have also filled the gap the proposed closure of TVNZ7 will create, but after four years of proving ourselves, we are no closer to being given the opportunity...”

this marks the loss of a second public broadcasting channel, and yet another reduction of choice for free-to-air tv. but more than that, when mainstream channels have very little programming that reflects ethnic minorities, stratos was an opportunity to see people like us telling the stories we wanted to tell. asia downunder was one of the few programmes that presented such stories on a mainstream channel, and that too has also been shut down.

as a subsequent release from stratos points out:

If you want to do something more for us, please lobby your MPs and Ministers to get the Government to reconsider its current broadcasting policy of allowing (viewer-paid-for) monopolies to take hold of the New Zealand television landscape. All email addresses of current MPs are here.

[...]

This broadcast spectrum (such as the Freeview channels) is managed and controlled by a state-owned enterprise called Kordia, which is tasked with getting as much return on their assets as possible. The downside of this system is that there are no frequencies reserved for the type of public service or community or non-commercial television Stratos (and Triangle) want to provide. Under the old analogue system, Triangle has been able to provide its public service remit because its frequency was reserved for non-commercial regional TV. The switchover to digital does not have provision for that type of TV (unless one is able to purchase the frequency - a commercially improbability in Auckland for non-commercial stations), so the long term future of Triangle is also in doubt when analogue switch off happens in December 2013.

and that's what it's coming down to: the reduction of public broadcasting, step by step, until television is for and about those who have disposable income and can afford pay TV. yet another step to move away from community and into commercialism, because according to current government thinking, economic value is the only value that counts.

One to watch

In case you hadn't spotted it: tomorrow night at 7.30, TV3 is screening a programme about child poverty in New Zealand. It should be well worth watching, but I'm also very interested to see how it presents the parents of poor children, especially the mothers - given that sole parent households are the most likely to be living in poverty, and John Key's government is hell-bent on seeing mothers on benefits as nothing but failed jobseekers. Parent-blaming is (a) usually way off the mark and (b) does absolutely nothing to improve things for parents or children. I think it's a good idea to send in prompt feedback on programmes like this, to say what we think they've got right and what they've got wrong. Interstingly, in the leaders' debate on TV3 tonight, the "worm" shot way up whenever Phil Goff talked about poor children, inequality, low wages and struggling families.

Scoop's Lyndon Hood did a great satirical version of the famous David Low cartoon figure, Colonel Blimp. recently, featuring Blimp's views on welfare.