Milk is such a meaningful name. It's not just a surname. It's the white liquid of life and hope. It doesn't only represent a homosexual male figure, but "the blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us's". It only takes two people to form an "us". Let's hope there will be enough us's to form a big one, a single mass of hope and courage. We should turn the possible into the probable. - It could be too much or unrelated to put in the same entry, but as the only spokesperson for Fortissimo (now) I feel the need to explain ff whenever there's connection in topic. If you've been careful in looking at the ff logo you'd realize breasts in the letter form. Breast represents not only women but also humans, who are mammals and fed by milk. Taken as a symbol of women as it always is, it embodies a wider range of humanity. Same as Milk, the attempt is not unidirectional. You can also see the nipples as noses and breasts as heads. There are two people, two genderless persons coming together. Fortissimo may be feminist, but feminist doesn't mean "female only". We're trying to speak as persons, and speak fortissimo if you may.
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Watching the Oscars, the introductory clip for Best Picture was almost like 40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes on Youtube. It's incredible how they can completely exclude half of the population without realizing. If it wasn't Sean Penn's incredible speech, I would think it was still about Best Actor.
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My friend said The Duchess was boring, but I found it rather moving. Despite the plot being quite predictable, it did make me cry for several times. Why would a story set in the 18th century compel? Because it still applies. Not saying that this movie is the special case that tells a message by presenting what might happen in the past. There are numerous examples, be it creative, academic or whichever type on whatever topic, that try to speak today's problems by depicting yesterday's. This happens because, no matter how many times we are reminded, there are always fragments of human nature that are prone to unacceptable deeds (that are often accepted).
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Here is Dita Von Teese's comment on women as sex objects in Indie Sex: "I think that historically, women have always been viewed as beautiful, sexual objects. And I know a lot of people don't want to hear that, and they don't want that, and they feel like it's a feminist view that we shouldn't be portrayed as sex objects, but this is... We've been sex objects for hundreds of years. It's not gonna change. And I say if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Everyone fantasizes about being a sex object every once in a while. I can't imagine anyone, in their deepest, darkest, most sexual fantasies, they're wishing that someone loved them or that someone cared about their mind or having an intellectual conversation. When it comes down to it, we're animals, in a way. We just want to be, like, sex objects. And so I just feel historically it's not something new. It's not like suddenly women are being portrayed in this way, where they just wanna show us all topless and show us as sexual creatures. It's been going on forever." I love Dita's way of showing her own beauty and sexual attraction without disguising them with pseudo-righteous masks. Feminism doesn't mean being cold and clothed in front of the camera or erasing make-up and breaking heels of high heels. It should help embrace all sexual qualities (including patriarchal stereotypes, yes) that possibly exist in this world - and all sexes that exist in this world, and treat them fairly. Apparently some people handle men's sexual organ more strictly than they do for women's: (Dana Stevens) "There's an early scene in the film [Young Adam] when Ewan McGregor goes down on Tilda Swinton on a riverbank right out in the open. You could make a feminist argument that that's an unusual scene to see in movies, and that it might be the content of that scene more than the raciness that pushed that movie into NC-17 territory. I would imagine that implied female-on-male oral sex might be more acceptable to censors, you know? It seems to be happening all the time in R-rated movies. The outcry also had to do with the extensive nudity by Ewan McGregor, although you never see him with a hard-on." (Peter Sarsgaard) "The ratings board can only handle so much penis. They can handle a lot of tits and ass. If you have a penis in a movie, you get a certain amount of time with that penis before you become NC-17." (Alonso Duralde) "For some reason, the penis is still forbidden territory. It's just that... It's that last line that nobody wants to cross." So penis and nude man must be quite a thing. That's why we have nude men introduced at ff! Let's make men sex objects too and appreciate their dic...penises and gaze at them all the time. I believe they want that too, for if women don't see them as sex objects (or subjects, whatever they want) or if women have no sexual interest in them, they won't have the chance to be the studs they'd love to label themselves as. Go, strip men in movies and in real life!
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No...ff isn't that big to get a gift from Barbara Wong. It's a gift for everyone. Here comes her new short film, Women's Private Parts - Family version! /Barbara's blog/
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Young aspiring film-makers are given a chance to exercise their thoughts about gender stereoptyping and discrimination of women and girls. Focus on Film and The Women's Foundation are recruiting for A Girl's Life, three short films concerning gender issues. Director Barbara Wong fully supports this programme. For details, please check the FOF page.
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《性工作者十日談》中的社工常提到妓女應視性工作為正當職業，只要努力做又做得開心，和其他工作無異。性工作也可以是正當工作，這點很合理，但我懷疑這工作可以有多開心。不是對篇劇的質疑，而是對這題目感到矛盾，支持性工作者及讓她們的地位得到社會的肯定故然是對，可是又擔心這樣一來，會否令以性工作者發洩的一群更加理所當然地差劣對待這些「樂意為他們效勞」的工作者？或許我想得比較悲觀，認定性工作者的工作，照理是肯定她們的地位和權益，對防止欺凌她們的行為應該是有幫助的。再看其他職業，其實某些顧客態度不友善和不尊重是避免不了，例如推銷員受不禮貌對待也得以禮回應，才表專業。「顧客永遠是對的」雖然不甚合理，在一般行業卻似乎沒有嚴重問題；但當這發生在性交易這和身體接觸有直接關係的行業時，「不友善」的表現往往不只是言語傷害，還是暴力。其傷害不單是身體上，還有精神上，而這行業的問題當然不只是暴力。如何提倡視性工作為並將其成為正當行業，同時又能消除此行業現存的黑暗面，不只是談人權和平等能解決。
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「我觉得女孩子与女孩子之间有一种很重要的感情，那是没有语言可以形容的，跟男朋友再好也没法达到。」- 李心洁 /xinhuanet/ I'm not a boy so I don't know, but I guess the kind of intimacy between two girls is not what can be found between two boys, be it friendship or romance. There seems to be a particular, different form of chemistry. Again, I'm not a boy so I don't know, but I guess mother-daughter relationship is different from father-son relationship in a similar way. Is this type of relation character natural, or formed by norm? Both, it must be. But I wonder how different (or similar) they can be, if the society hasn't formed so clear a set of attributes for each sex.
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