In Which I Upset Everyone I have Ever Met, Probably

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY, It's time for another one of Elly's insane rants that will probably make people mad at her because it dissects common things that lots of people do but look I don't CARE okay!

So hey, you know how all those winter holidays just happened a minute ago? (By the way, I wasn't dead, just computerless due to winter vacation shuffleage. I'll be purchasing a new machine soon, as my actual laptop is now a hunk of useless.) Yeah, 'member them? It seems like there is not a single year that goes by that this exchange does not occur in some manner.

Person A: Happy Holidays!
Person B: Man, that's so PC and lame. Just say Merry Christmas like you're SUPPOSED TO.

Or something similar, with varying degrees of hostility and/or declarations of "j/k."

So, I think we all know what's going to happen now.

No, don't leave. Come back. At least read the whole thing before you click that X button or leave an angry comment about my PC Policery. No, I'm not sure if policery's a real word, but it should be and so I declare that it is.

...This rant is all over the place, huh?

ANYway. The thing about being ZOMG SO PEE-SEE is that it is not intended to be about policing people's language for the lulz and a smug sense of superiority. (It's not INTENDED to be, which doesn't mean it never IS, but my rants on Gotcha Policing BS are for another time.) It's about not being a huge jerk who writes other people off based on the fact that they are different from you.

That in mind: Dear Christians who will say that YOU celebrate CHRISTMAS the was GOD INTENDED or the same thing in a way that isn't so overtly trollish, I am thinking you would kind of hate it if everyone you talked to all winter just said "Happy Hanukkah" with a sneering grin every time you said "Merry Christmas." On top of THAT, imagine that, all winter long, the radio plays maaaaaaybe three novelty songs about Christmas, and about a kajillion about Hanukkah. To say nothing of all the Hanukkah specials on TV, with not a one about the actual one you celebrate, unless they still air that Rugrats special. (I go with Hanukkah here because it's the most mainstream-ly known "alternative" holiday to Christmas, but feel free to substitute any other religious winter celebration you like, as there are a whole lot.) See, as it turns out, the Annual Christmas Smothering that starts ten minutes after kids go Trick-or-Treating these days becomes a lot more obvious and uncomfortable when one isn't actually, you know, Christian.

Let's keep that in mind, here. In America, there is this crazy little thing called "Freedom of Religion." In fact, some craaaazy hippies have interpreted this to mean they can also be free FROM religion, meaning that they can choose to consider themselves Atheist or Agnostic, and have no sort of god in their lives at all. Crazy hippies like me, let's remember. And since it is now 2010, which is officially The Future, and we have become a much more enlightened and intelligent society than we used to be, these people are no longer burned at the stake or even laughed at as quaint novelties (in public, anyway). And yet, while we Americans Of The Future don't blink an eye when someone tells us they are Muslim, or Jewish, or Pagan, or...Norse or something, once the weather turns wintry, so many of us are quick to completely write off the idea that they might have their OWN celebrations, that don't involve decorating trees because a shiny baby was born in a barn. That, in fact, maybe THEY have holidays that might have some tenets about hope and love and togetherness and all that crap that is touted in every Christmas special ever. And when someone says "Happy Holidays" in an attempt to not leave them out or make them feel marginalized despite not being able to tell on sight what holiday(s) they might celebrate, if any, it is kind of rude to sneer back "Merry Christmas," as if that were the only option.

For that matter, even if Christmas IS the only religious holiday you celebrate, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, completely non-denominational holidays based on the REVOLUTION OF THE ENTIRE PLANET as determined by the calendar commonly used in the modern world, are literally a week after Christmas. "Happy Holidays" is a much easier, more convenient and less messy way to wish one has a joyous celebration than "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year." This is to say nothing of typing all that, sweet diety of your choice in a handbasket.

And for all of those scared, or angry, or...whatever at the PC brigade for some supposed violation of your rights to free speech, I have some very simple points to make: One, no one is MAKING you be politically correct, and as soon as such legislation goes into place you can bet your bottom dollar that I will have no kind words for it. Free speech is free speech. But, you know, let me know when it becomes the law, alright? Two: You are still "allowed" to say "Merry Christmas" to people if you KNOW THEY CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS FOR EFF'S SAKE. And Three: It is a known law of the universe that as soon as one opens one's mouth to say they "aren't PC" anything that follows or is justified by this will make one sound like the bag attached to an object used by women to clean out their nether regions. Scientific FACT.

Hopefully my lighthearted tone and reasoning skills of death will have reduced any negative feelings felt as a knee-jerk reaction to the introduction of the topic. Please feel free to not tell me that I am taking things too seriously once again, as I will point and laugh and either ignore you or send you links to some seriously 101 crap. However, any comments asking for legitimate discussion or clarification, offering agreement and a slice of Word pie, or even just agreements to disagree are perfectly welcome. Please, keep in mind that you are discussing t3h ev0l political correctness with someone who frequently makes jokes that her best friend (a WWII history buff for those of you who don't actually know her that well) is actually Adolf Hitler and her father is Josef Stalin.

A Quick LolElly For the Weekend

ATTENTION LOLSMITHS

Unless you have something really mind-blowingly original--and I mean that with the utmost seriousness--please stop doing jokes that basically boil down to "Men and women sure are different huh lolololol". The same goes if you replace "men" and "women" with "white people" and "any ethnicity other than white people."

It is hack material and it is not funny anymore and seriously shut up about it. I will close the webpage, change the channel, close the book, or leave the area because you have made it apparently obvious that you are now out of material and must fall back on the same exact generic crap that every lame unfunny hack has done since THE DAWN OF TIME.

This goes double if the joke elaborates into "men like sex and sports and women like shoes and feelings" or some variation. (Apply your own racial flavor, if you so choose.)

That is all.

You were lookin' in the mirror and you wish you had some pot?

So apparently Amanda Palmer, who is awesome, had a falling out with her record label because she didn't want to cut out shots of her (incredibly hot) body out of her latest video, on the basis that she had a bit of a tummy and was thusly "not marketable" or some crap like that. This is fairly old news, so stay with me.

Palmer did what was right in flipping these jerkwads the bird, and they responded by refusing to promote her new album or single, I think. Details are hazy there. Palmer's fans and other people who can see the plain messed-up-ness of this nonsense have responded with The Rebellyon, which is comprised of many people sending in pictures of their own bellies with the knowledge that they all look amazing and are all beautiful and other hippie granola stuff that people will make fun of me for thinking.

I thought this Rebellyon was an awesome idea, and lamented its arrival being during the time when my real computer (with the webcam) is out of commission. Then, while perusing the subject further maybe about an hour ago, I realized: I HAD a picture of my belly, from a few months ago, when I was dying for snacks between shopping trips and thought it would be cute to take a silly little "SNAX PLOX" picture. So without further ado, I present my Belly.

And you know what? I'm quite proud of my little-kid-proturding tummy; moreso than I am of my bony hips because at least my tummy doesn't hurt immensely when I bang it on a doorframe. But I'd proudly take a picture of my bony hips (which are more like Shins Part 2, with how much covering they have) and post that on the internet if it meant something.

And I'd give you my toes, which I've always thought looked like men's toes on the basis that all the women in my life as a child (on my mother's side, mostly) had toes like my mother, and I had toes like my father, and all the pedicure ideas in magazines had toenails like me mother's to facilitate putting little mail polish pictures on them. I alas, have no room for such things.

And I'd give you my hands, which look, to me, at the same time like an old woman's and like a little girl's: worn from artistry and scarred from endless hangnails. (I was going to mention my warts too, but they seem to have mysteriously disappeared, which is strange because I have had the one wart for as long as I can remember, so I'm going to assume the wart fairy took them away.) My nails are never pretty; not since I stopped getting acrylics on them and went back to using my teeth for nail clippers and chewing off the polish whenever I do bother to polish them. They are, to my credit, almost always bizarrely clean, because I am so anal retentive about cleaning gunk out from my fingernails. (I used to come back from Painting and Ceramics classes with hands just as sparkling as they were when I walked in. There was probably paint or clay all over my clothes and in my hair, but MY HANDS WERE CLEAN. I put them in my mouth a lot.)

I'd describe similarly how I'd proudly display my bra-clad breasts, but my breasts are frankly my favorite part of my anatomy, so that would just be bragging. Suffice it to say my boobs are awesom and I heart them. (I do not heart the little lone black hairs that appear around my aurolae that bother me so much that I have to tweeze them away even if no one's going to be seeing them. WTF boobhairs; I am a blonde.)

I'd take pictures, if it had a larger purpose, of my unshaven legs in the fur coat I'm growing on them for winter. Other than the hair, very light on the top half and dark on the bottom half, they're pretty much ideal as far as Western Beauty Standards (tm) go. Other than bringing me only to 5'2", anyway. I'd proudly display my weird knees. Does anyone have attractive knees? Knees are pretty bizarre in general; like feet or genitals.

If I could get all high-res and artistic, even, I'd take close-up pictures of my shoulders so you could see the details I love about them most. They're freckled and shiny from years of sunburn after sunburn; the results of loving the beach but also being largely Irish.

If I could show the Internet at large the details in my face and hair that show up in a mirror but no on camera, I'd love to. The very specific pattern the tiny hairs in my nostrils make when I check for boogers. The thousands of freckles that run together to make freckle blotches that blend into my skin until summertime comes back. The pores on my nose. The blackheads on the edge of my upper lip that I can't get rid of because they are in such a difficult spot to get at without giving myself a fat lip. The individual hairs between my eyebrows that make me self-conscious about unibrow possibilities and so, must be shaved with that little As-Seen-On-TV electric thing for shaving tiny areas. The pattern made by the skin on my lips, which is a lot more pronounced when they're dry. The "beauty marks" on my cheeks. My crooked bottom teeth. All my split ends. The paint or glue or tea or clay or lip balm that is probably in my hair, no matter how long it's been since I've used any of those things. (Paint is an especially bad offender; I've seen blue ends a full week after using paint.)

I'd show you these things (for a real purpose, not for someone's gratification) because I know I am beautiful. And you know what? You're beautiful too. No, shut up, I mean it. You're reading my blog, which means I probably know you personally and can attest to it, but either way, I think everyone's got something beautiful to reveal. And once you own that? Everything else follows suit. People can see it.

Also, cookies for anyone who gets the title for this entry and why it is applicable..

YES YES YES YES

WE WON!

(Image from /b/, where good things are occasionally born.)

Rape Humor: You're Doing it Wrong

I have, as usual, been wasting my weeknights watching Comedy Central shows. In an odd enough twist of fate, not one but two shows dealt with rape as a central premise for jokes in the fresh new season. Loath as I am to say this usually, South Park got it wrong. And if you can believe this, The Sarah Silverman Program got it right. Let me explain these things one at a time.

South Park: DOING IT WRONG
The season premiere of South Park opened on Cartman having nightmares about the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, and raving to his friends the next morning, that the Chinese were going to take over. Kyle started and then said he couldn't do this today, Stan reminded Kyle that he was supposed to call Cartman "racist or something," and Kyle went home. For a glorious moment, I thought they were going to break the Fourth Wall. But alas, no.

The reason Kyle couldn't deal with Cartman today is because he had not been able to get over (apparently) witnessing the rape of his friend. For about five minutes we suffer, wondering who got raped. (Was it Butters? C'mon, it's always Butters.) Kyle has a horrible flashback which depicts to boys in a movie theater and we finally see who it was who was "raped": Indiana Jones. The boys run screaming out of the theater, one of them vomiting on the pavement outside and wailing things such as, "Aliens don't belong in an Indiana Jones movie!" And, alright, whatever, it's cool and "edgy" these days to use the word "rape" in that context, and the buildup was alright. There were a few throwaway gags that were actually, you know, funny, such as the good ol' Lifetime Rape Movie of the Week cliche of staring out into the sunset on a lake while talking about it in the most overwrought way possible. And this was, alright, not Trey and Matt's best work, but not too bad.

Until Stan started to "come to terms" with the "rape." Viewers were "treated," I guess, to an imaginary scenario in which Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas physically rape Indiana Jones. Two other characters had little visions like this, each one different, each one pretty graphic as far as basic cable goes, and each one just uncomfortably long. I don't mean uncomfortably long in the, "This was funny at first, now it's too long, now it's so long it's funny again" way; I mean uncomfortably long in that, "Wow, this was just umcomfortable, and now it's gone on for like an eternity and I hope there's a really good payoff." There wasn't a really good payoff. There wasn't ANY payoff. It was pretty much just three rape scenes which, I can imagine, would be pretty triggering for any survivors of rape who happen to actually like South Park. (I'm surprised it hasn't been on Feministe yet, really.)

The joke was not about how rape was bad or how rapists were terrible people, but how, even if Spielberg and Lucas are represented as evil demons, watching Indiana Jones get raped is FUNNY. But honestly, I watched it, three times, and it really really wasn't.

(To this episode's credit, the subplot about Cartman and Butters storming P. F. Chang's was fantastic and classic, "Cartman's not only a horrible racist but a total idiot" humor. That should have been the main plot, with the rape sequences being replaced with more Lifetime Movie clihes, I think.)

The Sarah Silverman Program: DOING IT RIGHT
The start of Sarah's domino effect of ridiculousness in this episode is her sister Laura's mention that she has vaguely Asian features because their Russian ancestors, ages and ages ago, were raped and pillaged by Mongolian invaders. This is not too unusual; lots of people were pillaged by Mongolians back in the day, but the silliness arises from the exaggerations in the show, as always. Sarah flashes back to her father singing a lullaby to her as a child. The last line is, in contrast to the rest of the happy song, a deathly whisper of "Your ancestors were raped by Mongolians." The ridiculousness builds up through the show, resulting in Sarah at one point screaming "rape" when her Mongolian landlords increase her rent. Jay rightfully chews her out for ever, EVER yelling rape when she wasn't in danger. Sarah, always kind of a horrible person, dismisses his arguments about "semantics" and goes on a rampage of ill-advised cartoonish crap, culminating in her purchase of a billboard with her sister's smiling face on it, declaring "Descended from a Mongolian RAPIST." The Mongolian Board of Tourism is, naturall, not pleased, and take Sarah to court. Sarah countersues for the rape of her ancestors.

The trial is where I realized the stark difference between the rape jokes in these episodes. The...prosecution? I don't know, who's the lawyer who's not working for the woman countersuing an entire country for rape? Well, whatever, the lawyer for the Mongolians produces a picture of a Russian peasant woman from, you know, way back when. She's got a long skirt and a babushka and the general frumpy look associated with "Russian peasant." The lawer presenting this picture notes that the woman's ankles are exposed, and that thusly, she is wearing the equivalent of one of Britney Spears' outifts, and so obviously, "She was asking for it."

After that, it gets a little weird and kind of loses the whole "rape" thread, so I'll wrap up. In contrast to the South Park episode, the joke here was about the attitudes toward rape, rather than the act itself. Sarah looks absurd for screaming rape about a rent increase, and buying a billboard of her sister's face with the word "RAPIST" underneath it in bold letters. The idea that a Russian peasant woman was "asking for it" by the way she dressed is patently ridiculous--as is the idea that any woman is "asking for it," ever. The idea of someone being raped isn't funny; it's how people act toward the idea of someone being raped that's funny.

I have to update my list of People Who Have Made Jokes About Rape That Have Not Made Me Incredibly Angry. It now consists of TWO people.
-George Carlin
-Sarah Silverman (or at least the writers for her show)

NEWSFLASH.

Women poop.


Not only that, dudes, but we fart and pee too. And one time, I let out such a ferocious burp in a Burger King that the entire place fell silent except for one guy laughing hysterically. And my farts? Sometimes, they can be pretty nasty.

I'm not even gonna get into my period, either, but I'm sure the ladies out there know that some gnarly stuff happens down there occasionally.

And no, we don't crap rainbows. Only Xlormp does that.

(Sarah Haskins marry me please)