Prince Hans

December 7, 2014

You’ve seen Frozen, right? Of course you have.

Better have anyway, because after this sentence are SPOILERS!!!

So, in the tradition of countless Disney princesses before her, Anna falls in love with Prince Hans upon meeting him, they share the movie’s love song, and they rush off to her sister Queen Elsa for permission to marry. Elsa, breaking from tradition (in this and at long last being a Disney princess who was promoted to queen! and being a Disney queen with more than three lines of dialogue who isn’t a villain!), tells her that she can’t marry someone she just met.

Shortly after this, Elsa’s ice powers are revealed, and in fear and shame she escapes into the mountains, inadvertently freezing her whole country in the process. Anna goes off to look for her and leaves Hans in charge. Hans steps up and helps out the freezing citizens (who should be used to this, since this takes place in Norway, which is covered in ice like 10 months out of the year anyway, but whatever), and when Anna’s horse returns sans Anna, he leads a group out to look for her and Elsa, imploring them to not harm Elsa even though they all think she’s an evil witch now or something (probably because it’s a Disney movie, which up until this point Disney mostly painted queens as evil or at least unpleasant). Later, Elsa is captured and imprisoned, and then Kristoff rushed Anna back to the castle for Hans to kiss her, because Elsa accidentally cursed her again and only an “act of true love” can save her, which is assumed to be a “true love’s kiss” from the prince, because, again, Disney movie.

But in a whiplash-inducing twist, Hans refuses to kiss her and reveals that all along he’d been playing her in order to usurp the throne of Arendelle, and he locks her in a room to die.

Whoa! They go through the whole love song and his whole looking-at-her-lovingly-as-she-walks-away only to reveal it was all a lie? And that he’s actually the villain? That… doesn’t even make sense.

Actually… it makes perfect sense, if you read between the lines.

When Kristoff and Anna visited the trolls after she was cursed, they initially thought she was Kristoff’s girlfriend and tried to force-marry them in that annoying Fixer Upper song. Kristoff finally yells that she’s engaged to someone else. The song resumes and includes the following line: “So she’s a bit of a fixer upper. Her brain’s a bit betwixt! Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed!”

Up until that song, he’d seemed perfectly okay. That line in the song implies the trolls intend to remove Hans from the picture because they so badly want Anna to be with Kristoff.

So what I’m trying to say is that the trolls cursed Hans. Perhaps cursed Anna actually so that the moment he was about to kiss her, he had the sudden change of heart. Cursed him with a frozen heart, I suppose. So when he went to kiss Anna and the curse took effect, any love for her was gone and he became greedy and backstabbing.

There’s a couple of ways to look at that. The trolls were worried primarily about Kristoff and Anna getting together that they didn’t realize this curse on Hans nearly got Anna killed. Or maybe they saw far enough ahead that it was now-evil Hans’s attempt to kill Elsa being thwarted by Anna sacrificing herself (surprise! said act of true love was sororal love, not romantic!) that solved pretty much every problem. Though that part could still have been luck.

Or maybe they didn’t actually care about what happened to the others. They just wanted to fuck with Hans and know that his curse would wear off while he was in that little jail cell on that ship and he’d be all “wait… WTF just happened?”

They are TROLLS, after all! 😉

Goblet of Fire

December 6, 2014

So I’ve been rereading the Harry Potter books lately (most of the way through Order of the Phoenix right now).

The fourth one, Goblet of Fire, is interesting in several spots.

Earlier on, there’s the Quidditch World Cup, with Ireland against Bulgaria. Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge is trying to communicate with the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, who doesn’t seem to be able to speak English, through silly pantomiming and whatnot. When the match is over, the Bulgarian Minister makes a comment, and Fudge is like “what? you do speak English?” and it turns out the Bulgarian Minister was just fucking with him the whole time for teh lulz.

Every time I read this part I find myself wondering, “So there’s the Bulgarian Minister of Magic. Where’s the Irish Minister of Magic? He or she would surely be there, too.”

Then I realize that Cornelius Fudge is probably Ireland’s Minister. In reality, Ireland is a separate country from the UK. But it seems in the Wizarding world, Ireland’s magical society is under the same jurisdiction as the UK’s.

Of course, when you think about it, it isn’t that weird that international borders in the Wizarding world might be drawn a bit differently. But interesting that the way it’s demonstrated is implying Ireland is not its own country.

A little later, delegations from two other magical schools arrive at Hogwarts. One is Durmstrang, which Dumbledore says is “to the north”, and if Hogwarts is in Scotland, I guess that school might be in Norway. Though the name of the school is a play off the German expression “sturm und drang” (storm and stress). Though the headmaster, Igor Karkaroff, is Russian. And one of the students, Viktor Krum, is Bulgarian.

The other is Beauxbatons, pretty clearly French. They moment they arrive at Hogwarts, they’re full of nothing but snooty complaints. When Fleur Delacour is chosen Triwizard Champion, the others literally fall into crying and tantrums.

And in the tournament itself, while Cedric, Harry, and Viktor are all doing well, Fleur is just terrible. Got attacked by grindylows. Though her failure in the maze was of course not her fault. At first, it feels sexist, that the only female champion is doing so badly. Then I remember that, no, her doing badly is not because she’s female. It’s because she’s French.

Between this and the Ireland thing…

Yes, yes, Rowling. We get it. You’re British. 😆

The Ninth One

December 5, 2014

*begins music and chimes and crap*

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen

Are they the guys who own that gay bar down the street?

Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.

I only see Donner. With Comet’s, Cupid’s, and Blitzen’s antlers in front of him on his dinner plate.

But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?

If I know the less famous ones, I’d probably know the most famous. Unless I’m some kind of hipster.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, had a very shiny nose

Why is that? Does he have a cold?

And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows.

That’s a serious cold.

All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names.

Hehe. Good friends ripping on each other. What fun.

They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.

Okay, that’s not friendly. That’s just bullying and bigoted.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say,
“Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”

The millennia-old saint with flying reindeer and elves and a home at the North Pole who can break all of the laws of physics delivering gifts all over the world is stymied by fucking FOG!

Then how the reindeer loved him, and they shouted out with glee,

So basically they changed their tune completely once he proved to be useful. Flaky assholes. Or did Santa make up all that “I can’t fly in fog!” crap just to pretend Rudolph was useful so the other reindeer would stop being dicks to him?

“Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer! You’ll go down in history!”

Brought to you by Montgomery Ward.

Good Kids, Bad Kids, Rewarded Kids, Murdered Kids

December 4, 2014

I’m so tired of the “naughty or nice” theme around Christmas giving. I’ve said before that Santa Claus doesn’t work that way and that those who say he does are assholes. Santa Claus is awesome and his story doesn’t need to continue being polluted with this manipulative nonsense.

There’s so much more to Christmas than this. There are legends and folklore from all over the place associated with the season. Let’s have a look!

First, here’s Befana:

In popular folklore Befana visits all the children of Italy on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany to fill their socks with candy and presents if they are good or a lump of coal or dark candy if they are bad. In many poorer parts of Italy and in particular rural Sicily, a stick in a stocking was placed instead of coal.

D’oh! That’s no better. Still the good-bad nonsense.

Oh, well. Let’s try the Belsnickel:

The Belsnickel shows up at houses 1–2 weeks before Christmas and often created fright because he always knew exactly which of the children misbehaved. He is typically very ragged and mean looking. He wears torn, tattered, and dirty clothes, and he carries a switch in his hand with which to beat bad children.

What the holy fuck?!
Continue reading “Good Kids, Bad Kids, Rewarded Kids, Murdered Kids”

The Rest of Life

December 3, 2014

There’s a quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson floating around, from an appearance with Bill Maher a few years ago, where he recalls noticing that the backgrounds of many Congressmen and Senators is law. And that he wondered “where are the scientists? where are the engineers? where is the rest of life represented?”

I’ll admit when I started writing this, already intending to speak on this quote, I hadn’t heard/seen the quote in context. When searching for the exact text, I instead found the above-linked video and heard his whole spiel. He precedes the above discussing that, with all these politicians having a law background, being trained specifically to argue, they are trained to basically argue their side and never come to an agreement. Okay, I may or may not be summarizing it well. Just watch the video and let him speak for himself!

The context doesn’t change what I intended to say, though. In fact, it just confirms it. He asks where the scientists and engineers are. I’ll tell you where they are… being awesome scientists and engineers and not wasting their time with political bullshit!

You know what’s extremely expensive? Scientific research. Even the smallest simplest research is really damn expensive, let alone the dizzying costs of medical research or the astronomical costs of, well, space exploration. But it’s all worth it, even the research that turns out to be a dead end, because it’s the noblest cause of all. It’s gaining information and developing things with that information to make our lives better, to advance, to reach untold unimagined heights. There is no greater investment in humanity and in, well, all of life and the universe.

By contrast, you know what else is really expensive? Political campaigns. Politicians are always raising money to beat the crap out of their opponent. We’ve got people dying from cancer, Ebola, AIDS, and countless other maladies and afflictions, which many millions spent in research can do something about. What do politicians spend millions on? Running mind-numbing advertisements calling their opponents douchebags.

So I’d say we’re better off with the scientists and engineers continuing to be scientists and engineers!

Of course, before I heard the rest of Tyson’s speech, my point was going to pretty much end there. He’s right, though. It makes sense. Politicians are trained to argue incessantly, so that’s exactly what they are doing, with their campaign funds, with their House and Senate votes. They don’t want to make the world better. They just want to pretend they do in order to get money and votes, in order to beat the Other Guy, to defeat the Other Party.

He’s implying that, if more politicians had backgrounds in science and other fields, we may have politicians who don’t have that urge, who are more interested in facts and solutions and improvement than in demolishing one another. It’s certainly plausible, right?

Then I remember Ben Carson, former neurosurgeon now vocal Tea Partier who may or may not try to run for President in 2016, who equated ObamaCare with slavery.

Yeah, never mind. :irked:

No Salvation for Male Teens

December 2, 2014

So apparently a homeless family of five sought shelter from the cold weather with the Salvation Army. Four of them were welcome, namely both parents, their 16-year-old daughter, and their 5-year-old son. The fifth, their 15-year-old son, was not welcome.

According to the guy’s father:

“They said he’s too old to stay on the women’s side, because of the women running around in their pajamas and they said he’s too young to stay on the men’s side in case some pervert wants to do whatever,” Lejeune said.

So he’s too dangerous to be with the women, while the men are too dangerous to him for him to be with them. Oh, God, it’s like wolf-sheep-watermelon riddle!

But seriously… what?! The Reason article calls it pedophile panic, but it’s quite a bit more than that. It’s yet another manifestation of the idea that teens equal trouble, both for themselves and for others. They are a danger to everyone, and everything is a danger to them. The curious ageist paradox that always seems to yield fewer rights for teens, who are never allowed a word in edgewise.

And it’s more ephebiphobic paranoia. “Help! It’s a teen! Is it a child? Is it an adult? Oh, Lord, I just don’t know. Let’s just shove it out of sight and not have to worry our heads with this freaky age-hybrid.”

The result? A young guy, whose only crime was existing and happening to be part of a family that fell on hard times, is forced to stay out in the cold, as is his family.
Continue reading “No Salvation for Male Teens”

O Canon, Where Art Thou?

December 1, 2014

It’s Christmas time! It’s that magical time of year when the regular mundane world undergoes some little festive changes. Greensleeves becomes “What Child Is This?”. Forest Green becomes “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. Little Deuce Coupe becomes “Little Saint Nick”. And Pachelbel’s Canon in D becomes Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Christmas Canon“.

Christmas Canon!

When local radio station 97.1 WASH (dear God, I mention them a lot on here!) switched from their usual light pop to Christmas mode the Friday before Thanksgiving, I stayed by the radio, even while at work, all day, as I usually do when the Christmas songs start, to hear songs I hadn’t heard in 11 months. Songs I have mixed reactions to. But eventually they would play Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Christmas Canon”! The lovely piece of music that when I first heard it about eight years ago on this station on my alarm clock radio I thought the radio had somehow turned to a classical music station. Then I became a little obsessed with the song, because damn it, it is beautiful and YOU WILL BOW TO CHRISTMAS CANON!

So Friday before Thanksgiving I listened to the station at first on my alarm clock radio and later through their website when I got to work.

Canon?

No, just It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.

Next song. Canon?

No, just O Holy Night.

Next song. Canon?

Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s… Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24 (the rockin’ Carol of the Bells rendition we all know and love). Welp, no more TSO for the rest of the hour then. I’ll get coffee.

Now what?

Oh, Caroling Caroling. I like that song. It’s cute.

Alright. How about Canon?

Nope. It’s the infamous Do They Know It’s Christmas?.

Come on! Many of these songs have been played several times already. Where the hell is Canon? It usually gets pretty frequent play.

Ugh, not Santa Claus Is Coming to Town!

Now yet another rendition of Silver Bells!

At least Happy Xmas (War Is Over) is getting a lot of play. That’s another one I don’t get tired of, whether John Lennon or one of the covers.

But where the hell is Christmas Canon? It’s been all day.

You know when I finally heard it? When I went home and played it on Winamp because of course I have the damn song. But I didn’t hear it on the radio station until the following Monday afternoon. Did they play it before then? I don’t know. Even I finally gave up after a while. But even though I’ve still had the station on during the day at work, I haven’t heard it on there since then.

In fact, Trans-Siberian Orchestra is touring right now, and will be in DC on the 17th. You know what the tour is promoting? Their album “The Christmas Attic”. The album which contains… Christmas Canon!

I mean, you’d think the station would want to play it more then! And even so, why not? They can play I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus as often as they do, which I really really doubt anyone actually likes, but the sweet aurally-pleasing Christmas Canon is getting totally snubbed this year.

So maybe I need to head over to the station with an ultimatum. And a cannon. Because apparently we’re all cartoon characters and thus have ready access to cannons. And I’ll say “Canon? Or cannon? Choose wisely.”

At worst, a miscommunication might leave me with a rather nice copier.

Supporting the Rights But Not the Gay?

November 28, 2014

So over the past week or so, I saw a couple of articles claiming that a survey found that many straight people who support same-sex marriage are still uncomfortable with public displays of affection by same-sex couples, moreso than by straight couples. On one hand, this sounds like just another case of cognitively knowing something is right (equal rights for same-sex couples, in this case) while personally not really caring for it for whatever reasons. Obviously, the latter feeling is not harmless, as this still promotes a heteronormative society and worldview that continues to marginalize LGBT people.

However, I see something more going on here, and it doesn’t surprise me at all. Sure, those who support rights but don’t want to witness “the gayness” might just be uninformed and on their way to greater acceptance. But something like this might call into question why such people support gay rights if they are so uncomfortable with it.

If their support for LGBT rights does not come from support for LGBT people and life, then perhaps it really only comes from opposition to homophobia. Opposition to homophobia, or more specifically the types of people who are or are more likely to be homophobic, is NOT the same thing as support for LGBT people. I mean, it’s an important part of it, definitely. But it’s nowhere near all there is to it. Truly supporting marginalized people involves a lot more soul searching and radical change than simply disliking the correct people.

I’ll touch on this again at some point (it’s almost December, after all!), and have to some degree already, but it’s just yet another example of people confusing hate with love, mudslinging with progress.

But, in the case here, it might in fact just be, as said, people still on their way to better understanding how to be properly supportive of LGBT people who haven’t quite gotten there yet. And even just supporting the legal rights is still hugely helpful. It’s just important to keep in mind that proper support for people cannot be based on hate, and to be careful that growing support doesn’t veer into that direction. It’s a sad place to be and ultimately defeating.

Postseason

October 30, 2014

I just watched Game 7 of the World Series. Aww, no more baseball until next year!

Did you see the Postseason at all? No? Basically, it was the ten best MLB teams saying farewell to you and to this season until next year. Here’s a recap…

*teams line up side by side in front of a stairway*

All: “So long! Farewell! Auf wiedersehen, goodnight!”

Oakland A’s and Pittsburgh Pirates: “We hate to go and leave this pretty sight.” *both exit*

All: “So long! Farewell! Auf wiedersehen, goodbye!”

Los Angeles Angels and Detroit Tigers: “We’re sweeped, we heave a sigh and say goodbye. Goodbyyyyyyyyyye!” *both exit*

All: “So long! Farewell! Au revoir, auf wiedersehen!”

Washington Nationals: “I’d like to stay and win my first World Series ring. Yes?”

San Francisco Giants: “No.” *Nationals and LA Dodgers exit*

Baltimore Orioles: “I’m glad to go. I cannot tell a lie.”

St. Louis Cardinals: “So you just flit and float and totally let the Royals sweep you?”

Baltimore Orioles: “I’m being sarcastic, you idiot!” *both sarcastically flit and float about and exit*

*Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants back away into the stairs*

Both: “The summer has gone for the year and so must we. So long. Farewell. Auf wiedersehen, goodbye…”

Kansas City Royals: “Goodbye…” *exits*

San Francisco Giants: “Goodbye!” *exits*

Scanty Costumes 2

October 29, 2014

So there’s been a big uproar lately about the types of Halloween costumes available to those of us who happen to be female. Including those who are female and not yet in kindergarten. Not that there hasn’t been plenty of uproar on this topic already. But it’s slightly different now, in that it thankfully isn’t blaming little girls for choosing revealing costumes over a modest ghost or pumpkin in some conscious attempt to be more sexy and adult. In fact, it’s placing blame where it belongs: on the adults limiting the girls to the more revealing options.

One common example is how the police officer costume for boys looks like an actual police uniform, while the one for girls is a ridiculous short skirt with high boots. Same with the firefighter costume and countless others, that the one for boys actually looks like a miniature version of the real thing while the one for girls seems to make it over-the-top feminine to the point of ridiculous.

Thing is, I see an obvious solution to the above, and it’s a solution that interestingly enough is being forgotten due to adherence to gender binary. Just buy the “boys” costume for the girl. I mean, we’re talking prepubescent kids, so there aren’t nearly the body shape differences between the sexes as there will be later. The “boy” costume should fit her just fine. I mean, why is it a “boy” costume anyway (or the skirt one a “girl” costume for that matter)? Says who? The packaging says so and you can’t defy the packaging ever? The packaging will be out of the picture once the costume is being worn, so, tada!, you now just have an adorable little girl dressed like a cop all ready for trick-or-treating! Awww! 😀
Continue reading “Scanty Costumes 2”