| thoughts from a cunning linguist | |
I went to see Kill Bill yesterday in Philly--not exactly a book, but worth reviewing anyway. If you haven't seen it yet, don't "meander further into the bush"; run do not walk to the nearest movie theatre. It's a kick-ass film with a very interesting limitation. I've got more to say about it below...
Usually I don't find violence amusing. But I have to give Quentin Tarantino his due. I was laughing out loud at parts of this film. And it's not like he's parodying violence. Nope, you're supposed to take it sort of seriously. But the soundtrack is so great that you can see some comic relief in the radical discrepancy between what you're hearing and what you're seeing. Uma Thurman, code name Black Mamba, is out to kill every member of an elite death squad that was sent to kill her on her wedding day (she was also pregnant in the white dress). Somehow, she survived and she's got a death list. Two of the people on this list bite the dust in Kill Bill, Vol 1--the second volume is set to be released in February, I think. The film is a stylized representation of violence, a veritable homage to Hong Kong cinema. And the best part is that there are literally kick-ass women here. It's great to see women seeking revenge and really taking charge. We've had a bit of a drought when it comes to female action heroines (Xena notwithstanding).
But why is it that "the child" must always feature as the cornerstone of and the limit case for female revenge? Black Mamba's out to get "the crowd" because, presumably, they killed her unborn child. She balks at killing one of her enemies when the enemy's child shows up from school and throws the whole wrestling, breaking glass, throwing knives at each other scene into relief. Female revenge seems to be sponsored by the block parent program. I just wonder if there could ever be any other reason why women might want revenge and why vengeful women might stop at killing their enemies. Now there would be a stroke of genius that could work hand in hand with his brilliant filmmaking techniques.
If you've never heard of or read Olivia or Olivia Saves the Circus, (a) you're missing out on real pleasure and (b) this blog entry will mean nothing to you. So get thee to a book store, find the children's book section and be prepared to laugh. Olivia is the world's most fabulous pig. And as of today, there is a new Olivia book: Olivia....and the missing toy, which I, of course, am dying to own.
Olivia is drawn by former New Yorker cartoonist Ian Falconer. The books so far have been drawn only on black, white, and red (with shades in grey and pink)--the new book introduces the colour green. What is so fabulous about Olivia is her wit, her independence, her curiosity, and her flare for the dramatic. Olivia rocks. I'm waiting with bated breath for the newest Olivia to arrive on my doorstep. Yay!
Okay, let's face it: I'n no Oprah Winfrey. But I read a lot of books, even if I don't have a corporate machine behind me. And, in the interests of blogging more, I'm inaugurating a new category of blog entries. Here goes with the first of the lot, certainly appropriate for a Bush Whacker who's studying sexuality.
Solitary Sex by Thomas Laqueur
The subtitle of this book says it all: "A Cultural History of Masturbation." Thomas Laqueur is coming to speak to the Sexuality Studies Working Group (of which I'm a member) this coming Friday. So my day today will be largely spent trying to finish reading this tome of a book (almost 500 pages) before he gets here. Laqueur's a Berkeley prof, whose reputation was built largely on his previously published book, Making Sex. It's a medical/social/cultural history of the very idea of sexual difference. (Rumour has it that Laqueur took himself off to medical school to really study medicine in order to be a more legitimate commentator on its history. I was told this once, though who knows: could be an academic urban myth)...
In Solitary Sex Laqueur argues that masurbation is THE modern form of sexuality, rooted, as it is, in ideas about and anxieties attached to individualism. There's a good deal of literary discussion here too about books that Samuel Pepys, in his diary, called "books you read with one hand." But Laqueur really takes a serious look at the historical evolution of masturbation, tracing its modern-day configuration back to a particular tract called "Onania," published in 1712. (Rare precision for a history of ideas and practices). One of the more surprising observations he makes is that masturbation was a form of "self-pollution" (both morally and medically) not only for conservatives, but also for progressives. This is not to say that mastubation was only invented in 1712, but only that masturbation in its current form can be traced back to this time. It's quite fascinating how masturbation (and prohibitions against it) so define the ways we think about sexuality even in the current form.
That's one story about the role of masturbation in my life these days. I could tell you others. But doesn't the fact that I'm not say as much about the unspoken rules of decorum, about conventions of privacy and publicity, and about what contexts make sexually explicit content more acceptable than others? Isn't Laqueur therefore right that masturbation tells us quite an interesting story about the individual's relationship to sexual practices and ideas AND about the role of sexuality in civil society?