"Alien" She

Yesterday I found a very interesting feminist critique of the Alien franchise. You can check it out here: Demeter, Peresephone in space.

This also gives me an excuse to post a Bikini Kill song...

"Deflowered": A Bunch of Punk-Ass Pansies!

Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division is an autobiography by Jon Ginoli, the lead singer of punk band, Pansy Division.

Who are Pansy Division?





And personal favorite:



These guys are a totally gay punk rock band. They are a tight operation, they rock out, they're funny...they even toured with Green Day right when Dookie was making it big!

So why haven't you heard more about them? Because America is run by assholes who hate you. How else to explain Top 40?

Deflowered briefly discusses Jon's childhood and adolescence, which was very normal and boring: no heroin abuse, no being locked in the attic until the age of 13, or any of that usual memoir crap. Jon was raised in the Midwest, and the wildest thing he did as a teen was dress like Patti Smith. I can totally get behind that, and have been tempted to do so myself.

The story continues in the gay bars of the 1980s, which played the same shitty dance music they do today. In fact, while reading Jon's complaints about the San Francisco scene, I was very much reminded of walking into The Stonewall Inn on New Year's, and leaving 15 minutes later, because I can not stand that disco bull shit. Seriously. Jon and his friends in Tribe 8 worked very, very hard to give queers RAWK; why can't we give them some props at the bars instead of waiting for Riot Grrl theme night (if we even get that)?

Because Jon, 20 years ago, was frustrated by the lack of queer punk rock, he did the punk rock thing, and formed a band himself. He notes that there were queer punk zines before the music had arrived yet, which I found quite interesting. There were also some dyke bands forming, such as Tribe 8. The riot grrl scene eventually brought a lot more of them, but by the late 1990s the status quo had its revenge and we were subjected to Gay Pride favorites, The Spice Girls. Girl Power!



Most of the book consists of tour diaries. They got picked to tour with Green Day in 1994 because the drummer of that band, Tre Cool, wanted to rile up the frat boys that began to come to their shows as they got MTV airplay. The boys in GD genuinely liked the band, though, and they toured with them twice. Pansy Division even got some MTV airplay themselves in the form of an interview on 120 Minutes.

Some audiences, like the ones at Squeezebox in New York, or the venues (squats) in Italy, were very positive. Others, like some of the Green Day audiences as the band got huge, were absolute assholes. The band gossip Jon relates, concerning certain of the pop-punk scene, I really relished, since I grew up in the late 90s and had to go to class with the same alternateens that worshipped those pricks.

The tour diaries are fascinating at first, but they can get repetitive. I wish Jon had talked more about the transformation of the punk scene, though hearing about Tre Cool smearing mustard on electrical outlets was kind of great. They toured so much maybe it was hard for him to make a clear observation of what was going on. He was also in his 30s at the time and not really part of the punk "lifestyle" even as a teen, so he was kind of on the fringes despite being in a band.

However, the problem with the diary entries is that they don't have a lot of meat on them, so it all kind of blurs together and I wound up skipping parts. Discussions of band promotions, like making a video parody of Bill & Ted are a lot more fun to read, but fewer and far between.

Deflowered gets 2 and a half stars.

1 star for "attempting to make music at Pride less horrible"
1 star for "Beavis humping Butthead, Bill humping Ted, et al"
And 1 half star for "mocking Blink 182 and Bon Jovi" (it's only half because it's too easy)

"Fun Home": Dads to Watch Out For

Fun Home is a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, the cartoonist behind Dykes to Watch Out For, a long-running comic strip about dykes and dykey things. It came out in 2006, so if you care very much about dykes, graphic novels, funeral homes, etc., you are probably aware of it. Entertainment Weekly even put it on their list of best books of the freakin' decade.

Even though Entertainment Weekly loves it, you shouldn't hold that against Fun Home. It really is a good book! It's also a great graphic novel. A memoir where the images explicate the words, it is exquisitely detailed but never stiff and dull. The drawing style keeps things lighter than they might otherwise be...considering the heavy subjects touched upon, such as mortality and even suicide. It is both funny and deep, engaging and analytical: everything the best comics are.

And it is a very gay work. Alison, of course, is thoroughly lesbian, having come out in college and drawn a comic strip about dykes for 25 G-d damn years.

But her dad was also queer. He was a high school English teacher and had relationships with some of his older students, which really did a number on his marriage. He was even arrested and prosecuted for giving a beer to an underage boy. He also had relationships with fellow soldiers in the service, during his time in the Army during the 1950s.

Even though he had strong feelings for males his entire life, he got married and had children, as many people did back then and still do. This was to the detriment of everyone involved. When his wife, exhausted by his affairs and verbal abuse, finally asked him for a divorce (Alison was 20 by then), he was hit by a truck soon afterward. Fun Home speculates that it was suicide, but nobody knows for certain.




On the lighter side, Alison's father was also obsessed with fashion, flowers, and period restoration. He seems to have taken out his more femme proclivities on poor Alison. Some of the strongest parts of the book focus on their power struggle. He was a tyrant for velvet and precise flower arrangement. There is a certain poetic justice in the man's only daughter growing up to be butch dyke.

The plot of the book is elliptical, driven forward more by ideas than by actions. The central event of the book is Alison's father's death, so soon after the threat of divorce, and only 2 weeks after she came out. To add to the memetic swirl, her father was also the town funeral director. The funeral home is introduced early in the book; it is the titular "Fun Home". Its presence hangs over everything as a shadow of death.

Another theme in the book is literature. Alison's father was very fond of F. Scott Fitzgerald as a young man; later in the book, it's James Joyce; and the Greek myth of Daedalus is alluded to early on. There are also references to Proust. However, the book is still accessible even if your idea of high literature is High Times.

This is truly the sort of book you read again and again, picking up more with each reading. It's not just about living with a frustrated, closeted dad as a young lesbian...it's about death, it's about family, it's about how literature informs and affects one's life.

I give the book 4 stars.

1 star for "being a cartoon that's less cartoonish than the last two movies I've seen"
1 star for "taking on Dad touching boys in a calm, collected manner"
1 star for "still being entertaining despite all of the above"
And 1 star for "1950s truck stop butches"

New "Sucker Punch" Poster

"Sucker Punch" is a movie meant to appeal to the 13 year old boy within us all (ahem). It has girls, guns, dragons, biplanes, giant mechs, and probably a nuclear-powered kitchen sink (although it isn't in the film poster). Slated for a March 25, 2011 release after some delay, it will hopefully be more than just a collection of boobs and explosions...it's by the guy who did "300" and that owl movie, so...yeah. I mean "hopefully" in the most hopeful way possible.

Also: more crazy women! -- the protagonist is in a mental institution. The more things change, Hollywood, the more things change...

Here's the new poster, covering all the key 13 year old bases:



This movie is like meeting a cute girl in a Ramones T-shirt. You get all excited, and then you remember it's not 1979 anymore, and people look at YOUR blue hair and think you're into The Killers or some shit.

Check out the trailer below.



Can "Sucker Punch" deliver? I'm praying it does. The angsty voice-over at the beginning is awful, but the explosions sure are pretty...

And here's to something old school that always delivered: Tank Girl!

"Black Swan": Oral Sex Can Kill You!

I went into this movie (oops) fully expecting to hate it. I mean, it's a movie about ballet (cooties!), and the reviews I've read seemed to suggest it was homophobic.

I did not, in fact, hate "Black Swan". Sometimes it was gross, and sometimes it made me angry, but mostly I thought it was funny. This is a movie that hates the fact that human beings have bodies. I can not imagine anything more ridiculous...

I also didn't expect to find so many similarities to "A Streetcar Named Desire", but, even leaving aside the fact that "Streetcar" is still fresh in my mind, the parallels are plentiful.

1. Both movies hate, hate, HATE sex. "Streetcar" offers sex appeal and then cruelly yanks it away, leaving you with incest, pedophilia, spousal abuse, and rape, while "Black Swan" barely gets as far as holding hands before making you feel like a terrible person. The movie from 1951 is actually more progressive in that regard.

2. Both movies offer us horny females who go absolutely, positively, woo-hoo insane because of their horniness. Granted, Nina (Natalie Portman) is on opposite sides of the fucking planet from Blanche, in regards to acting on her desire. However, it's still desire that gets the two of them into trouble. Woops, I meant "terrifying madness and/or death".

3. Finally, both movies really don't like the fact that men and women exist. And not in a queer, "down with gender" kind of way. It's more like a "you are sinful for existing" thing (see link above). In both movies, men are portrayed as insensitive, sex-crazed brutes and women are portrayed as jealous, sex-crazed lunatics. Hey, maybe it isn't just these two movies...maybe it's Hollywood. However, a "Streetcar"/"Black Swan" double feature would really make a great field trip for an abstinence only sex ed class!



On to our feature presentation...

The movie starts with Natalie Portman (Nina) dancing with a big ugly man in an awful sweater, who eventually turns into Satan, or maybe a Mexican wrestler, or a chicken. And so the tone has been set. Off we go on a sinister subway ride, where a cute chick is spotted in the opposite car -- or is it only Nina's reflection?

Nina is a ballerina, who has a creepy relationship with her mom, and is so femme she makes Barbie look like Vin Deisel. She trains in an underground torture chamber. Oh wait, that's Lincoln Center. You know, I was just by Lincoln Center to visit the Performing Arts Library, and it didn't look particularly grim then. Maybe because it was daylight...

Enter the asshole director, who gives us some exposition on "Swan Lake". The good, pure White Swan is bested by the evil, slutty Black Swan, "and in death finds freedom". That's almost as subtle as Blanche telling a sailor, "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and transfer to one named Cemetery." Actually, it's even less subtle, since at least that was a metaphor.

And how the hell does a bird kill itself by jumping off a cliff, anyway? Very deliberately?



Ok, so, we already know how the movie ends. Nina dies. Time to go!

Wait. There's that sexy girl from the subway ride!

Sexy girl's name is Lily, and she's "straight off the plane from San Francisco". Straight indeed. Nina's already got a queer eye for her.

There's some bitchiness from the other ballerinas, and there's some bulimia, there's some toe cracklin', and Nina is menaced by graffiti...then we have the wrinkly old asshole director sticking his tongue in her mouth. She bites him. Good for her!

In accordance with Hollywood logic, this is exactly what she needed to do to prove herself. She gets the lead role in "Swan Lake", over Veronica, who is mean and wears too much makeup.

Nina celebrates by calling her mom, and by getting completely freaked out by a slur written on her mirror. Even worse, mom has to get all weird about her cake. If you go by this movie, bulimia is just part of the job, but getting upset when your daughter won't eat cake is crazy and abusive.

The next scene is all ribs and nipples, in case you were feeling ok about Nina not eating cake. Asshole director (his name is Tomas) watches her dance the pure, virginal White Swan. He tells her, "The real work will be your metamorphosis into her evil twin." I agree, I hear that kind of thing is exhausting.

Bloody cuticles scene. You know, I bite my cuticles all the time (I know, it's gross), and it never sounds like that...



More assholery from the asshole director. Nina is called a cocksucker by Winona Ryder. There's an ugly damn bird-man sculpture. Is this at the Museum of the American Indian? You know, I once did a drawing project just like that, it was all about a man sacrificing himself for art and science, and transforming himself into a bird...

Tomas continues to be an asshole by taking a less-than-eager Nina back to his room for sex. When she resists, he suggests she go fuck herself, quite literally. What a charming guy.

Nina returns home. Now, I scribbled down a series of notes at this point. They're just sentence fragments, but I think they get the point across all by themselves:

Exposed spine
Scratching herself
Oozing
Mom strips [Nina] topless & sucks bleeding finger

In other words: ewwww.

Well, after all that, Nina decides to go to her room and take the asshole's advice. Surrounded by pink, fluffy stuffed animals, she lies in bed and rummages under the covers to her crotch. It's not very sexy, since she has the body of a prepubescent, and is even wearing little girl Underoos. It gets even less sexy when we, and Nina, realize that Mom is in the room.

Winona Ryder's character, Beth, meanwhile, decides to throw herself into traffic. We don't actually see this, but the asshole director suggests to Nina that she intentionally got hit by a car. You see, Beth was the former head ballerina at the company, and the asshole fired her for being old. Then she got hit by a car. Does he seem guilty or remorseful about it? Not particularly. He is truly a prince among men.

More scabs. More sexual harassment: "I'll be the prince" indeed. He paws at her little girl body as a sort of tutorial. She needs to be more passionate, and nothing gets a woman's blood flowing like RAPE.

Enter sexy Lily, with bad-girl cigarettes. She is much prettier than Tomas, or hell, even Nina, who has this weird skin rash...she is also genuinely charming and would be the most sympathetic character in the film if the film didn't consider female sexuality completely evil.

"Someone's hot for teacher..," Lily surmises, when Nina defends Asshole Tomas. I think I threw up in my popcorn.

Bloody fingernail clipping. You know, I could have sworn that this sort of thing was a specifically MALE metaphor for fear of sex and the castration complex...but then again, I wouldn't want to see what the movie would come up with for a specifically female version.



Another evil subway ride, on the Hogwarts Express to Hell. Grandpa sits across from Nina and mimes fingering her. Boy howdy, does this movie hate sex.

Nina and mom argue. Nina takes off with Lily to the evilest night club in New York City. Lily gets her drunk, introduces her to frat boys, and gives her E. This can not end well. And it doesn't.

While Nina is half passed out from all the booze and drugs, Lily fingers her. Has nobody in this film ever heard of consent? Next up: Nina arguing with her mom. That's kind of a good thing, since her mom is too attached to her. Then Lily has ambiguously real oral sex with Nina, accompanied by disgusting sound effects, because how dare the audience enjoy it?

It ends with Nina waking up alone and throwing out all her creepy toys. Wow, that wasn't so bad afterall. Maybe sex isn't such a bad --

GAY PANIC!

Nina starts going...well, less sane. She is all sweaty and gristly the day before her starring role. She is hallucinating, complete with ominous music and huge shadows. "Black Swan" temporarily transforms into a slasher flick. And Nina temporarily transforms into...oh come on! That's actually the ankle joint, not the knee! There's absolutely no need for that popping noise either!



Well, I guess female independence means going insane. That's what puberty is for. On to the dance!

Everything is going great until Lily's man-whore "accidentally" drops Nina. For that, Lily (certainly not her man-whore) must die. So she dies. Or maybe she doesn't. Who can tell at this point? Nina kisses Pickle-Puss asshole Tomas, which is this movie's way of saying "Nina has become an independent adult", and my way of saying "That's disgusting!"

It's bad enough that Nina has just killed her lesbian crush in favor of an oily old leather bag of a man...but he's been a little rape-y throughout the movie. The only reason he doesn't, in fact rape her is...um...I'm at a loss for reasons. Because it would give "Black Swan" an X-rating?

Oh G-d, I can already hear the sound effects...

But Lily isn't dead...or evil...and something about pushing shards of glass into a pussy...I mean, a tutu, and then...oh fuck, this is worse than menarche.

If I had to give this film a star rating, it would be 2 and a half out of 5:

1 for "keeping my attention" (how could it not, with all those bleeding sores?)
1 for "making me afraid of ballerinas" (see above)
And 1 half star for "lesbian sex scene which was actually kind of hot if you ignore the amplified slurping sounds"

Despite my first impression, I did not wind up hating this movie. It has such a vile message I almost ENJOY hating it, which makes me like it...but then I remember why I hate it again. So in the end, I like hating it, which is different from simply hating it.

Natalie Portman put in an excellent performance, and I'm going to do an image search for the actress who played Lily right now.

New Movies? What New Movies?: A Streetcar Named Desire

If you're like me, the only thing you know about this movie, going in, is that it involves Marlon Brandon in a Fruit of the Loom undershirt, screaming "Stella!" for some reason. Also that it's by Tennessee Williams, that beloved of high school English curriculum, with The Glass Menagerie.

Well, I read The Glass Menagerie in high school, and it creeped me the hell out. I'm not saying it was a bad read, but between the CA-RAAAAZY mother and poor little possibly autistic Laura, I could easily imagine the play being remade into a horror movie. And maybe it was...

But Mr. Williams was rather fond of the lads...and Brando in a wifebeater must have turned on more than a few of them, even back in the closeted 50s. So it seemed like good material for this blog.

For clarity's sake, I watched "The Original Director's Version", which has 3 extra minutes of footage compared to the version you may have seen. Assuming you've seen it. Surely my readers aren't as ignorant as me, whose childhood consisted of multiple, forced viewings of classic films such as Son in Law (Steven Tyler PJs!) and the original release of Hairspray (yes, that's Sonny Bono).

So now that I have thoroughly established myself as an uncultured ignoramus, let's get back to Marlon Brando before he turned into this:

Brando is the one on the right.

We begin the movie with cabs and trains and a stridently noirish saxophone. We are in old New Orleans. The virginal Blanche DuBois emerges from a cloud of steam. You will soon learn that Blanche is somewhat less than virginal, but in these early scenes, she seems vulnerable and naive. She asks an out of focus sailor for directions, explaining, "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and transfer to one named Cemetery." This is already a beautifully shot film, but clearly not one for subtlety...

Blanche winds up in a neighborhood that reminds me of walking down Rivington one night, looking for ABC No Rio. Except that, whereas I was surrounded by overdressed yuppies leaving bars, Blanche has hookers and men carrying chickens by their feet to contend with. She's looking for her sister Stella's house, but Stella's out. Blanche asks a neighbor where to find her. Despite first impressions, it's NOT at a brothel or an opium den...no, Stella is very prosaically "watching her husband bowl".

This is not entirely correct.

Actually, Stella is watching her husband BRAWL (albeit at a bowling alley), and she seems to be quite turned on by it, too. We, and Blanche, are aghast.

So we, and Blanche, go out for a drink with Stella. We soon learn that Blanche is rather neurotic, and that she has recently left her job teaching English. She needs a place to stay. And she's "so hot and dirty and tired". The two sisters compliment each other's appearance, and order more drinks. Sounds like the makings of a good time to me! Except that they're sisters. And that's gross.

The next scene reveals that, fancy wrought iron staircase aside, Stella's living arrangements are little better than a squat. Blanche is very concerned about the lack of doors: "Will Stanley be decent?" "Oh, Stanley is Polish, you know," replies Stella, which seems like it should be a Polish joke about being too stupid to wear clothes properly. Since Stanley is rarely seen wearing much more than an undershirt, maybe it is.

The close personal contact between the two sisters in this scene begins to set off my gaydar. Blanche of course has to ruin it by getting wild-eyed and crazy, talking about the loss of the family home and reciting poetry about death. Jeez. This might have been cute in high school, but now I know better than to pine for goth chicks!



Now we have Brando's -- I mean, Stanley's -- formal entrance. He's so sweaty and nonchalant, such a contrast to the two sister's stagey acting. It's like he's stepped into this movie from the future. You almost expect him to be in full technicolor, the Land of Oz to Stella and Blanche's Kansas. As he explains to Blanche, he's sweaty because he's been "exercising hard [...] bowling".

Brando, I mean Stanley, seems most amused by the sexual power he holds over the two ladies. He's much more amused by it than he is interested in Stella's kisses and caresses, or Blanche's eyelash fluttering. He is hot and he knows it. Sure, his slurred speech makes him sound like he's taken too many shots to the head, but he looks good in tight T-shirts, so it doesn't matter too much and might even be a selling point. Blanche certainly doesn't seem to mind yet. She's flirting with him like a little Southern hussy.

"HOW ABOUT CUTTING THE REBOP?!!" suggests Stanley, and the next thing you know, Blanche is gibbering to Stella about babies...and rockets...and adultery. She is giving bisexual women a bad name.

So, Stanley's playing poker with a Mexican stereotype (we know he's Mexican because he wears a funny hat), and another guy in a hat who thinks domestic violence is funny, and Mitch, who is balding, and has a weird lump on his nose. Stella tries to break the game up, but Stanley hits her.

Meanwhile, Blanche is flirting with everything wearing pants. She is coming on strong to Mitch, even though Mitch looks like Al Bundy. It dawns on me that she only flirts with women when there aren't any men around to molest. She sure has a lot in common with the girls I knew in high school...and she reinforces this impression with attention seeking behaviours, such as playing bad music too loud, and wearing skimpy clothing.



Stanley thankfully ends her mentally unstable mating ritual by throwing the radio out the window. That's exactly what I wanted to do, too. But then he beats Stella up, which is mean. There's a bunch of confusing "roofah", and it all ends with four sweaty, muscular young men in a shower together. As a wise man once said, "Ho yay!"

Or maybe "STELLLLAAAAAAAA!", because that's the next scene.

Stella and a soaking-wet Stanley make out, with Blanche chasing after them, in pursuit of the most hellishly concieved threesome this side of No Exit. Now it's Stella's turn to be mentally unstable, as she explains to Blanche afterward that Stanley's abuse isn't alarming or traumatic, that it is actually quite arousing. If I were Blanche, I would say, "Masochism is one thing. Stockholme syndrome is quite another." I mean, I've known some people in abusive relationships...but they were not specifically TURNED ON by the abuse. Even people into whips and spanking would generally disapprove of getting beaten up in front of their husband's poker buddies during a drunken rage.



The scene continues with more sisterly love. At several moments, I am certain that the famous "Tennesee Williams lesbian sex scene" is about to begin...but alas. Of course Stella is in her slip, because people in New Orleans hate to wear clothing. And it really does not help the case for heterosexuality that Blanche is trying to convince Stella to leave her husband. In fact, the look on Blanche's face when Stella runs up and hugs Stanley is priceless. Yet it also raises the question: why all this competition for Stella? She's not a tremendous looker and she seems even slower than Stanley Kowalski himself. But then again, I felt the same about Britney Spears circa 1999, so maybe I'm just tough to impress...

Hmm...Stella would definitely be a big fan of "Hit Me Baby, One More Time". She'd karaoke the hell out of that shit.

Next scene: more domestic violence, this time NOT by Stanley. Stanley does give Blanche a bit of a talking to, though, concerning her, and men, and cheap hotels. Blanche mentions to Stella something about "turning the trick", but Stella tells her that she never listens to her when she's being morbid. That's probably the safest way to go.

"Honey," she tells the already toasted Blanche, "don't take another drink." If only she had sense enough to say the same thing to her husband...

Thankfully, the paperboy arrives. Blanche reverts to femme bot mode. In her defense, he is quite well-dressed for a paperboy. He is wearing more clothing than Stella and Stanley combined. We learn from their conversation that "cherries make [Blanche's] mouth water." Indeed! "Did anybody ever tell you you look like a prince out of Arabian nights?" asks Blanche. "You do, honey lamb." I hope all the pick up artists out there are taking notes.

Once again, Blanche has to wrench away any voyeuristic pleasure you may be deriving from her actions: "I've got to be good and keep my hands off children." Then her boyfriend, Mitch arrives.

I sure hope he doesn't marry her...



Blanche is a moody bastard on their date. "I don't think I've ever tried so hard to be gay," she says, by way of apology. Quit lying, Blanche! You try very, very hard. It just gets more awkward from there. I begin to suspect that Blanche is just leading poor Mitch along, to serve as a cover for hot, nasty, paperboy sex. They are going to get married, and she is going to have babies that aren't his, and it will be just like that story by Isaac Singer. I mean, Jerry Springer.

Just when you think it can't get any worse, Blanche starts talking about her ex-boyfriend. The dead one. The one she made commit suicide. Mitch, naturally enough, kisses her. I would be jumping off the pier and swimming to Cuba.

Next, we have Stanley yelling. He's on the job, but that doesn't stop him from yelling. Nothing, nobody, stops Stanley Kowalski from yelling. Mitch wants to punch him, because he said something mean yet doubtlessly true about Blanche. The next scene has Stanley saying lots of mean yet true (and honestly hilarious), things about Blanche. Meanwhile, Blanche swishes around and sings in French, oblivious or perhaps just insane.


Although Stanley is very funny, and has saved Mitch from the worst marriage in the world (next to his own), he still comes across as a self-serving dick. He wants Stella to himself; he does not want to share her with incestuous, bisexual, sexually loose Southern belle pedophiles with severe mood disorders. That would almost be fine, except that he beats the crap out of his wife and willfully manipulates her.



Can things get any worse? Yes!

Blanche emerges from the bathroom and it's back to Crazytown. She appears to be downright delusional as she begs Stanley to tell her a funny story. By now, it is certain that this will not end well...it will not even end badly...it will end horribly. You will wet your pants.

"Do you like parrot stories?" Blanches asks vivaciously.

No, Blanche, I do not. Just...just...

JUST STOP TALKING AND LEAVE.

FOR YOUR SAKE, FOR EVERYONE'S SAKE, JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND RUN, RUN AWAY, AS FAST AS YOU CAN.

So what does she do? She tells the parrot story.

Stanley smashes things, which is both shocking and not shocking at all, considering his character and the circumstances (I hate parrot stories, too). Then we are reminded that Stella is pregnant. Because the best thing to do to a fucked up, failing marriage is to bring a child into it.

Stanley makes a lovely little speech about his Polish heritage. This would be heroic, except that he's screaming at a trembling woman on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Then he gives Blanche a bus ticket out of New Orleans, in case you still felt positively about him, for some reason.

Then Stella goes into labor.



Can things get any worse? Hell yes!

A thoroughly drunk Blanche has yet another awkward conversation with Mitch. Did I say "awkward"? I meant terrifying. I meant psychotic and brutal.

"I was fool enough to believe you were straight," says Mitch, to unintentionally lighten the mood.

"Straight? What's straight?" asks the crazy lady. She gets to ranting again. Ominous music plays. Mitch kisses her. Cue the strobe lights. Cue the crazed screaming.

Can things possibly get any worse? Sure, why not?!

Blanche goes completely batshit crazy. Now, she wasn't exactly stable before, so you really have to see her now. It defies description. Of course Stanley saunters in as she's talking to herself. Where's my Xanax?

"Let's have a little rough house," suggests Stanley. And by that he means rape.

Blanche is now completely, double dog dare, super saiyan batshit crazy. She is so crazy, that even the crazy people around her want to put her in a home. And just when you think to yourself, "Things can not, simply CAN NOT get any worse. We have truly hit the pit bottom of insanity," there's a picture of the baby. And then the psychiatrists arrive. And then Blanche starts thrashing around wildly like she's having a seizure...

This is almost unbearable. This is almost like high school.

In sum, this movie's idea of a happy ending is to have a battered wife take her baby in her arms, and run to the neighbors as her husband screams at her.

I think that from now on, I will only review lighter fare, such as Black Swan.

This is a very good, and very homoerotic movie, don't get me wrong. But Tennessee Williams scares the SHIT out of me.

Are you there, World? It's me, Nerdyke.

I'm not sure why I've decided to title this with a Judy Blume reference. I have never, ever read Judy Blume, not ever in my life. Too damn girly.

Yessir.

If I had picked up a Judy Bloom novel in my preadolescent years, I would have probably jerked my hand away, as if stung by a venomous, glittery vermin, and immediately rushed to shower away the girl cooties.

Nowadays, I do not mind being slathered in girl cooties.

Ahem.

I have created this blog because I still think making gay jokes about Saturday morning cartoons is funny, except when it's serious, because Lord knows I take everything seriously. Have you ever considered the feminist implications of The Muppet Babies? I hope to cover it one day.

You see, when I'm bored and online, I want to read all about how Scar from The Lion King is a mincing gay stereotype, and about Cillian Murphy playing pretty ladies and Judy Garland being wickedly camp, and the Internet is simply not paying up as much as I would like it to.

I need, I crave more!

Therefore, I have decided to "be the change you want to see", to quote Gandhi (or maybe not).

Yep, you heard right: this blog is inspired by freakin' GANDHI (maybe).



I hope to follow in Gandhi's footsteps by reviewing books, movies, comics, etc. from a queer perspective. I hope he would have been proud of me...