A Trivial Buttonhole

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Care to take the Bechdel test?

My brother reminded me of the Bechdel test of women in movies. You can watch this short video...

or read the three rules:
1. Are there two or more women in it, with names?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. About something other than men?

So here I've tried to randomly submit some of my fave movies to the test...

- State and Main passes the test (Annie says hi to all the women in the town by name, re. the play, and go ye huskies!)
- Zoolander passes, because Katinka and Matilda trade insults during fight scenes.
- Henry V might pass... the Princess is learning English from her maid, albeit because of the probability of marrying Henry.
- Joy Luck Club passes with flying colours
- Sense and Sensibility - easily
- American Splendor passes - his wife and daughter
- Room With a View - pass - there are lots of ladies, talking about views and flowers and travel
- Sound of Music - big pass
- Persuasion - pass
- The Harry Potters probably pass because there are named female teachers teaching named female students

- Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband - both fails
- Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - fail, even though there's lots of women with names - also Evita, maybe Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls,
- Purple Rain - fail
- A Christmas Carol - fail, there's few women at all
- Clash of the Titans probably fails because while there are lots of named women talking to each other, they're generally talking about Calibos, Zeus, or Harry Hamlin.
- The old Star Wars movies of course fail. The newer ones have some talk between Padme and her named guards.
- Not sure about Pride and Prejudice, because the sisters do talk a lot about boys with each other. And indeed many if not most romantic comedies would fail because the Best Friend is only there in order to talk about the romance.
- I doubt Hot Fuzz passes, and probably Sean of the Dead doesn't (but it's a mixed group of men and women at the end fighting off zombies, so they might talk)
Jesus Christ Superstar = epic fail (let's face it, the New Testament is epic fail. Unless you consider Jesus to be non-gendered, since *he* is god)
- Galaxy Quest - no pass (but then it couldn't because it was modeled on these TV shows with no women on them)
- Restoration - fail, it's all about the main male protagonist
- Marx Brothers movies - fail (maybe some tiny passes in there)
- James Bond movies - fail of course, except where there's a female baddie--she might threaten the Bond sidekick after all

Series - whether they pass in general (many times)
- Cranford = win au boute
- A-Team = fail
- Vicar of Dibley - big win
- Jeeves and Wooster = fail
- Spaced = pass
- Dr Katz - mostly fail, though there are some conversations between Laura and the clients, Eg. about Joyce Behar's sweater
- Ugle Betty - supa pass
- House - massive massive fail... I can't imagine anyone, male or female, talking about anything other than House (which is why this show is not really on my faves list... just a funny example)
- Most Charles Dickens series should pass because there are zillions of talkative characters, all named, so the ladies must cross paths occasionally without talking about men
- Miss Marple mysteries - big win, but less so for the Poirot mysteries (actually the mystery genre in general is packed with both female authors and female characters)
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer - pass
- entourage - technically a pass because the wives and girlfriends sometimes meet and exchange small talk, but in spirit --> it's a boys club
- Welcome Back Kotter - fail
- West Wing - should pass
- MASH - pass

Anyone care to test one of their faves? I know Swissgirl's Golden Girls would majorly pass.

a long-o day-o

Work
Umm so I was a wee bit tired after two nights of 3 hour sleeps. And it was a busy day. My brain could handle it for the first 8 hours, but the second my shift was officially over (and I wanted to work on my own work, as opposed to running the store) every customer received a telepathic message telling them I would be there to fill their every need and dream and they should not let me take two steps without stopping me.

Ordinarily I love that sort of fun-on-the-sales-floor, but I had someone waiting to talk to me, so it just stressed me out. After 30 minutes of this (and after taking off my uniform vest didn't help) I finally took off in an all-out run for the office. Jumped into it like I was leaping into a fox hole. 3 hours later when I tried to leave work, my brain cells were so fried I returned to the office about 5 times in a row, while another manager was holding a meeting in there, because of forgetting things. It was like... Departure Fail. Failure to launch.

Eating
Yesterday I ate pasta while listening to a program on CBC, but I felt fine about it because I started listening while making supper and it wasn't over when I was ready to eat. It was about two Newfoundland Inuit families in the late 1800s who agreed to travel around Europe as part of a zoo exhibit. The Germans didn't remember to inoculate them against smallpox so they all died. One of their member kept a diary in Inuktituk, which the CBC show was based on. Really interesting.

But today at work I worked while eating, simply because there was so much to do. Blech.

Food
I went to the grocery store after, and tooook myyyy tiiiiiime. I wandered slowly through the aisles, weighing my really really empty fridge (emptier than it's been in years, literally) against how much I could carry. Towards the end I came across a new aisle they just set up of international food.

Oh man did I have fun! The municipality I live in is pretty white and oldy, but just north of the grocery store (still well in the burbs) there are a lot more immigrant (or first generation Canadian) nabes. I only know this because if I take a bus in that direction, in the space of one block, I go from being part of the majority to the minority.

Anyway, the grocery store must be finally trying to tap that market because they have a huge new aisle of international groceries. Not the North-American-ized kind (Heinz's Tandoori sauce or whatever) but the kinds of prepared foods you usually see in smaller markets, with 6 languages on the label. Plus ginormous bags of various rices, and cooking oils.

It used to be I couldn't locate a stuffed vine leave for love nor money in that store, and I searched high and low for tahini. This new aisle had a variety of stuffed vine leaves, 6-8 brands of tahini, 8 different kinds of refried beans, and a whole other host of Interesting Yummies. Indian, Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern, Mexican, Greek... I felt like I was on a Disneyland "It's a Small World" ride.

I took a pass on the gefilte fish, and had to pass the things that would have been too heavy (jerk sauce, refried beans), but I couldn't resist a huge bag of the brightest dye-coloured tortilla chips I've ever seen, a big package of chocolate wafer cookies, stuffed vine leaves, Chana masala spice mix, and back in the frozen section I found samosas. If I have to return to processed food I can at least do it in style!

Books

They're pre-screening this a Fantasia this summer -- a Montreal film festival that used to focus on Asian films, but I get the impression they're now positioning themselves as a "genre film" festival.

I found out today that it's basd on a manga-esque graphic novel called Scott Pilgrim. It's actually a Canadian series, with a Canadian setting, but apparently they've un-Canada-ed it for the movie. Tsk tsk.

I bought the first edition as a bookseller told me it's really good. Will report back! ;-)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

50 Questions

Q: What was your most recent trip of more than 50 miles?

A: Okay first of all I have no concept of that 50 miles is. Not because I'm Canadian, but because I'm dyscalculiac. I can picture one foot because I have feet. But I can't picture a mile or a kilometer. I'll do some research and be back.

...

Okay Mtl to Ottawa is 100 miles, and a 2 hour drive. So I guess it's on hour of driving.

A for real: Stratford, Ontario, last fall. For the Shakespeare festival, with Gilby, Oscar and Yoda.

Et vous?

I'm not on fire

Have you ever heard what the novelists call a blood-curdling scream? I tell you ... it really does curdleize the blood. Or at least, it sends a shot of adrenaline SHOOTING through you, and you can perform great feats of ingenuity, such as extracting a cat who's hiding under the bed.

A couple nights ago, at a time when most are asleep but we are not, the fire alarm went off. This happens about once a year. Once it was a cooking fire in someone's home, but the other times it was a prank or malfunction, we don't know which. So when it goes off, we don't freak out too much, but our #1 priority it to get the cats (now made easier.) Fernando goes out to see if it's Real Cause for Alarm, while I pack up the cat. (And if it seems fake, I toss my purse and laptop into my backpack.)

Tonight it went off again and we were debating whether to leave when we heard a woman scream. Oh. My. God. I guess she screamed "fire" but all I heard was

but without the giggling at the end, and a bit longer.

There was no fire as far as we can tell. Maybe she saw the fire trucks which Fernando had called (which he automatically does.) Or it was mischief. There is a form of socio-whatever-thingy that calls in fires and then watches people. Maybe the scream was added as an effect, because everyone was so blasé last time. But they were blasé this time too.

We have new neighbors upstairs (the boys have sadly moved out) and when they saw me in the staircase with my cat carrier the woman said: You're taking your cat?! So the boyfriend went back. But he didn't manage to corral them.

Thees will not happen to me. I will die trying to get my One Remaining Cat (and more if I get more) out of the apartment. If she hid behind a bookcase where I couldn't reach her, I'd pull the frikking thing down. I don't know all this for a fact, but the day they tried taking Sherry away to give him a needle without me being present I saw a side of me I've never seen. The Mommy Feelings seem to be alive and kicking, they've just transferred themselves to felines.

As it was, the night ended more pleasantly. Turns out the new neighbors were delivered my mail by accident, and it was my two remaining etsy packages (plus I got the other one in my box today.) So I'm sitting here enjoying them. Because I'm too bloody wired to sleep, though I start work in 5 hours and only slept 3 hours last night.

Oh my lord.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! <--Hey! Stop screaming in my head!! #%$^@%

Look at the cute packaging. I ordered two bracelets and they came wrapped like little prezzies, and she tossed in a third smaller bracelet for free, wrapped in a little bag with her bunny symbol.

Interestingly, that scream makes me realize what it would be like to be caught in a real fire. And I begin to think that Bruce Springsteen's song "I'm On Fire" is a poor metaphor. "I'm On a Slow Intense Heat" maybe, but that man is not on fire.