If we’re going to worship idols, can’t they at least be entertaining?
By Emma Teitel - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 0 Comments
At the risk of being called a churl and especially, a traitor to this magazine, I am going to insult the British monarchy.
For too long (in my humble opinion) valuable tabloid space has been monopolized by two classes of people you might call FFDN’s (Famous for Doing Nothings): the British Monarchy and The Housewives of Insert-American-City. The main difference between the two classes is that one class has some—class, that is—and the other doesn’t. The B.M., I will concede, is the winner in this regard, but it doesn’t stop them from being as tedious as the housewives. It seems as though every decent self-respecting celebrity rag has suddenly abandoned its traditional and proper focus on the cellulite and scandal of show-biz’s rich and famous, in favour of reality TV weddings and reluctant dog christenings. Continue…
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Leave Lego alone
By Emma Teitel - Friday, January 27, 2012 at 4:06 PM - 0 Comments
zgrredek/Flickr
A number of so-called “feminist” and “health” groups are speaking out against Lego for launching an allegedly sexist line of building blocks and action figures specifically designed for girls. Said groups believe that the new pink and pastel-y Lego line gives young girls the impression that “being pretty is more important than who you are or what you can do.” But Lego says it created the line after getting requests from female customers (“moms and girls”) to make toys with brighter colours and domestic themes: i.e. girls want to play house, not just build one.
And why shouldn’t they be able to? Continue…
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‘Anti-gay’… I mean, ‘pro-family’
By Emma Teitel - Friday, January 6, 2012 at 5:16 PM - 0 Comments
Everybody’s talking about Rick Santorum, a.k.a. the previously ignored Republican primary candidate from Pennsylvania (also Jerry Seinfeld’s unfunny, Roman Catholic doppelganger) who couldn’t get a word in edgewise at any of the GOP debates. Until this week, he was far better known for his “Google Problem” than his warmongering, privacy quashing political aspirations. Today Santorum is a rising star, setting his socially conservative sights on the state of New Hampshire, after placing an extremely close second to Romney in the Iowa caucuses this week. He seems to think his near-victory in Iowa is proof that you don’t have to be a moderate to win a general election.
Iowa, however, isn’t America, something the former senator was rudely reminded of at a New Hampshire university last night, when his gay-marriage-will-lead-to-polygamy argument was met with unanimous boos:
That Santorum will flounder is almost certain (it’s only a matter of time before talking heads and comedians start lambasting him as fiercely as they did Bachmann and Perry) but mainstream and liberal media could quicken the process if only they’d avoid using the manipulative terminology Santorum and friends use to espouse their anti-gay rights, and anti-privacy beliefs. For too long, grossly dishonest phrases like “pro-family” and “family values” (phrases invented by and for America’s religious right) have been used by mainstream publications to describe the political profiles of Republican candidates. Take this example (one of many) from the Boston Globe:
Santorum, a Catholic, has campaigned on a strong family values platform.
The above is simply not true. Santorum may say he is campaigning on a “strong family values platform,” but it doesn’t take a Ph.D. in ethics to understand that revoking adoption and marriage rights for gay people (something Santorum has expressed keen interest in doing) is not in the best interest of families. Then again, Santorum’s definition of what constitutes a family is decidedly limited (let’s just say he doesn’t see eye to eye with Mrs. Doubtfire).
Anyway, enough with this doublespeak. It’s lazy journalism for reputable publications to use terms like “pro-family” and “family values” out of context in reference to a political candidate. Just because Santorum and company cloak their bigotry in euphemisms, doesn’t mean we have to follow suit and use their language. Rick Santorum is not running on a “pro family platform.” He is running on a pro-heterosexual-family-and-no-contraceptives-please!-platform. Just as “pro-life” is a gross euphemism for “anti-abortion,” “pro-family” is a gross euphemism for “anti-gay.”
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Christian fundamentalism’s cool factor
By Emma Teitel - Friday, December 23, 2011 at 3:16 PM - 0 Comments
kyz/Flickr
A well known hardware store (Lowe’s) and a well-known travel website (Kayak.com) have recently pulled their advertisements from a little-known reality television show (All American Muslim) in order to appease a little-known group of anti-Muslim Evangelicals (the Florida Family Association). Why? Because according to said Evangelicals, All American Muslim—a TLC show about an average Muslim American family–“profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.” In other words, the characters on the show are not grenade-throwing Jihadists. They’re normal. Worse, they’re boring (the show’s ratings are abysmal, even in the midst of the current controversy). Or as Michelle Goldberg writes in the Daily Beast, “The boycott of All American Muslim marks the first time right-wingers have objected to a television show for being too bland and wholesome.”
The weirdest thing about this, however, isn’t that an apparently wholesome Christian group is carping about a wholesome TV show, but that two substantial businesses actually felt the need to listen to them; it’s as though Lowe’s and Kayak mysteriously absorbed some of the massive Tea Party pressure currently facing G.O.P. candidates—a pressure that has turned the United States into the next Twilight Zone. How else do you account for a country in which political incorrectness masquerades as political correctness? Apparently conservative politicians in America–and now big business–are no longer afraid that they’ll offend the oppressed and marginalized: they’re afraid that they won’t.
