The Blame Game: The Pink Headband Edition

Do you remember that story that you read on your facebook feed about the woman was confronted in Wal-Mart over the fact her son was wearing a pink headband? Sure you do. Everyone was horrified and talked about bigotry and why Florida (where the story took place) was the worst.

Yeah, turns out it was probably all bullshit.

(A lot of the heavy lifting on this one goes to the website Get Off My Internets which smelled the story as bullshit from the moment it hit)

Of course the Mommyblogging world has reacted to this news by recognizing that by creating a career out of being judgmental and self-righteous they created the conditions for something like this to happen by encouraging outrageous stories instead of well written true to life takes on parenting.

JUST KIDDING.

Melissa Ford at BlogHer just posted a story about how this is the fault of the people like GOMI for expecting these blogs to be truthful.

Then last week, as often happens after the Internet is stirred, a second wave comprised of skeptics started calling bullshit on the story. Prove it, some people said. People started combing Katie's past posts, looking for anything that could be used to discount her veracity. She's a pathological liar, some people said. She was debated and discussed.
What happened to simply clicking away?

Yeah. If you think something is a pack of lies then don't talk about it. And when it shows up on your facebook feed don't correct it. Don't demand for truth from the media. Just accept things because it is mean otherwise.

Ford compares the blogger who (allegedly) created this story to the girls at camp who would make up shit.

My friends and I sometimes privately joked about the stories, which always ended with someone pulling the girl back from the brink of death, but we never confronted the girl, or publicly humiliated her, or called her mother to corroborate the story. Mostly because ... what if?

First of all, no. This was not the nicer thing to do. Being all catty behind the back of Junior Miss Baron von Munchhausen was not a form of kindness. It would have been much nicer to go to her Mom (or some other adult) and explain what she had said. And either be told "Yes, Suzy was kidnapped 5 times" and know that it's true or given the adult a heads up that Suzy has problems.

Because if Suzy was telling the truth you all didn't really believe her and were bitchy behind her back for nothing. And if she wasn't, then you didn't force her to learn the importance of telling the truth. Something that probably harmed her through other parts of her childhood.

In fact, this response is the worst of all possible ones. Believe everything would be better. Believe nothing would be better. This is believe nothing personally but then believe everything to their face.

But I do agree that the blame in this doesn't sit mostly with the original blogger (who has since removed her blog and is trying to make the story go away). So, who is to blame.

70% goes to Huffington Post and AOL and the other major media outlets that picked up the blog and made it go viral without doing any basic fact checking on the story. The fact that something is printed on a blog does not mean that it is confirmed as true. I had a friend who worked for a newspaper mailroom and he'd tell me about the weird letters that they'd get from people claiming that the CIA was stalking them or that someone was peeing in the lemonade at the grocery store. These things are common to news outlets and if the blogger had gone to HuffPo asking them to write the story of her incident they would have declined because it couldn't be confirmed. But as soon as it is written on a private blog then news aggregators feel that it's okay to share. They aren't reporting the story. They are reporting what someone else said.

Without Huff Post this story would have gone to a few thousand people who follow the mommy blogging community. They could have believed it or not. To use Ford's camp analogy, what Huff Post did was take what Suzy told her friends and broadcast it to the world. Then, when it turns out to be a lie, they take no responsibility.

20% goes to the mommyblogging community. The blogging community in general rewards stories and blogs that highlight the unusual. The truth is that the day-to-day thoughts and experiences of most mother's will never reach the audience that this story did. BlogHer and other sites act as if blogging is a viable stay-at-home business but they don't point out that very few people will ever be successful at it. They will either need to be very good writers or they need to have something like this post which causes them to be discovered.

And 10% goes to the blogger herself. This story didn't just harm her but harmed a lot of people. It means that if this does happen to somebody they may not be believed. It means that people walked away thinking Florida is terrible (which pisses me off as a native Floridian). And it means that maybe parents of a boy who might want to wear a pink headband will convince him not to, because they are afraid of being confronted in a Wal-Mart.

Why the UK Apprentice is SO Much Better than the US One

I've been getting over a cold, which means lots of movies and tv binge watching. While down the rabbit hole of YouTube I caught an episode of The Apprentice UK.

In the name of Batman, I'm in love.

OK, look, I like reality shows. Not really the "reality" shows where real fashion star wives of teen moms do stuff. But the competition shows. I love The Amazing Race. I adore MasterChef. And I even sort of like The Apprentice.

But my liking of the US Apprentice turns to love when talking about the UK counterpart (which just finished up its 9th Series). Here's why:

Better Boss

Donald "The Donald" Trump is easily the most annoying thing about The Apprentice US. He is smarmy, he talks down to everyone, his advisers consist of his talentless children, and he is a fraud. The fact that Donald Trump is a success story only shows how the current system favors the already wealthy over new innovators. The man has filed for bankruptcy four times, used courts to bully people who dare to cross him, and even responded to a lawsuit against his shady Trump University by suing the woman who brought the claim.

(In fact, daring to state that Donald Trump is a tool could result in being sued or at least targeted in one of Trump's twitter wars. But since I am a poor law student with a blog that nobody reads, either of those things are not really a worry for me. Characterizing him as smarmy, that his children are talentless, and his status as a fraud are opinions protected by the 1st Amendment. The other allegations are repeating facts culled from other sources or stating my own opinion on those facts. Also, I'm supposed to get legal clinic hours before graduation so I guess handling my own suit against Trump would count.)

Donald Trump is the worst part of The Apprentice. So by replacing him with British tycoon Lord Alan Sugar the show is already better than the Yankee version. Lord Sugar is a self made man who started out selling electronics out of a van, moved on to computers and technology, and is now just plain hella rich. He's connected to the Labour Party and an advisor of the British Government on matter of business.

But he also isn't a pushover. He's strict but funny. He's everything that The Donald isn't.

Better Advisors

In Apprentice US, Trump has previous winners, his children, or other associates go check in on the team to report back to him. The problem is that there is so much stuff that happens when they aren't there watching the final product that never make their way back to Trump. As a result, someone can make a terrible mistake but never be called out for it because it is only seen by the cameras and the viewer at home.

Apprentice UK sends out one of Lord Sugar's associates to follow each team for the entire time the challenge is going on. They offer commentary to the audience about mistakes they are seeing and report back problems to Lord Sugar. As a result, there are fewer wrong firings on Apprentice UK. It also means that the other people in the boardroom can do more than give the vapid commentary that the Trump children do when they are asked to sit in on Apprentice US.

As this clip shows, these guys know what happened because they were there!

No Product Placement

While an episode of Apprentice US seems like an infomercial for whatever product they are pitching that week (Office Depot! Walgreens! Trump's Wife Makeup Company!) the UK Apprentice can't use such blatant product placement since the BBC is a part of the government. In fact, the complaints against product placement on UK Apprentice has centered on lingering shots of cell phones. Which seems an adorable complaint next to what goes on during an episode of Apprentice US.

More Realistic Contestants

The candidates on US Apprentice seem hyper aware of the nature of reality fame. After all, Omarosa is still living off the reputation she got from her appearance on the show. Meanwhile, the cast of each Apprentice UK seem to not actually realize that they are on television or that people will hear the shit they are saying. This results in some amazingly crazy moments that would not happen in the more savvy US version.

Also, they can say shit. Sometimes you just need to say shit.

The Apprentice UK is pretty much all available on YouTube. Find a playlist for each season and enjoy your Trumpless Reality Television Gold.

Why is "The Butler" called "Lee Daniels' The Butler"?

The weekend the number one movie in America was the verbosely titled "Lee Daniels' The Butler" aka that Oprah movie with Snape as Ronald Reagan. Of course the big question that everyone has been asking is WTF is up with that title.

Above the title naming is often used when a popular filmmaker is involved. With the exception of "For Colored Girls" all of Tyler Perry's projects as director have started with his name (i.e.Tyler Perry's Temptation: If You Cheat on your Husband You'll get AIDS). This way even people who may not know anything about the movie know that the popular Tyler Perry is involved. In the days of video stores, above the title naming also insured that your films would all be grouped together which increased sales.

But Lee Daniels doesn't have the box office drawing power of Tyler Perry. His only previous directing work of note was the acclaimed "Precious" and the roundly mocked "The Paperboy". So, what's with the naming?

The story you will find most places is a variation of this one from BET saying that Warner Brothers contested the use of the title "The Butler" because they own the copyright to a 1916 short film of the same title.

But to anyone with some film history, this excuse doesn't make any sense. There have been tons of movies with the same name. "Crash" could refer to the Oscar winning movie about racism in LA or the NC-17 James Spader film about people jerking off to car crashes. "Bad Boys" is the title of both a 1980s Sean Penn movie and a 1990s Will Smith flick. And don't forget the ultimate sadness experienced by anyone who turned on "The Avengers" only to find the craptacular remake of the TV series instead of the Joss Whedon Marvel movie mash-up.

The copyright excuse doesn't fly from a legal perspective either since, to quote the US Copyright Office, "copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases." Similarly titled films could run afoul of trademark law if the names could create consumer confusion, but that seems unlikely when one of the movies has Cyclops doing a Boston accent and the other is silent. 

Turns out that this is a contract law issue, not intellectual property. Filmmakers who want their work to be shown in theaters must have MPAA approval. These are the people who give out film ratings (a process detailed in the must see documentary "This Film is Not Yet Rated"). They also run the Title Registration Bureau. Registering your film title with the bureau is voluntary but all of the major studios take part in it because they don't want to have to risk delaying a film over a last minute lawsuit from someone claiming that you are violating their trademark. By using the Bureau you agree that you will use the MPAA arbitration process in any title disputes. 

So, WB, who own the rights to the Uma Thurman "The Avengers" didn't challenge the Marvel movie title. The same thing with all those other examples of same name titles. If nobody complains then it is no issue. This time someone complained. 

According to this article from The Hollywood Reporter, the name issue only came up when the studio behind "Lee Daniel's The Butle"r and the studio that owns Silent Movie "The Butle"r were having issues negotiating a different deal. The Butler naming got caught up in that. Since everyone in Hollywood is an asshole now the movie has a stupid name and Lee Daniels looks like a Tyler Perry knockoff. 

So, there you go. Why is "The Butler" called "Lee Daniels' The Butler"? Because people are assholes. 

This does remind me of the one other interesting MPAA naming issue that I recall. The MPAA tried to revoke their approval of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut's title after first granting clearance. The reason? Someone explained that it was a penis joke. But it was too late to take renounce their approval.

The Problematic Good of Adoption

A friend from England asked me to explain adoption to them. They were writing a story set in the US involving a couple adopting a child and wanted to know how these things were done. I explained the legal outline (agency vs. private vs. foster/adopt and so on) but I didn't tell her the rest of the story. The story about why I feel so weird about adoption.

My Grandmother placed a child for adoption. It was an inter-family adoption and I've known him my whole life since he reunited with her when he was an adult. So, I certainly know that adoption is a good thing in theory. But there is certainly a problem with the way that it is often used in the United States.

In a perfect world women would place children for adoption because they did not want to parent them. But too often the reality is that a woman does want to parent but opts for adoption because they want to give the child a better life. That is where I start to feel icky about the entire process. This concept of adoption being a way to give a child a better life.

It's problematic because of what better often means in this context. Better means a two parent home. Better means parents who have gone to college or work in white collar jobs. Better means money. Better means opportunities.

This concept of better has two sides: shaming people who don't have those things and respecting people who do have them. There shouldn't be shame from being a single parent or respect for being in a marriage. It's the quality of those relationships that deserve praise and not simply having them. A woman placing a child for adoption because she is single is rarely reminded that marriage is not a permanent state.  Her child could end up being raised in a single parent home if the couple divorces or one parent dies.

The fact that an adoptive couple has more education is hardly a reason to expect them to give a child a better life. A degree doesn't mean that someone is particularly clever or gifted. And money is also no indicator of an ability to provide for a child. We've seen that many people who seem to be living large are actually just deeply in debt. A lost job or turn in the market may leave them in the same financial state as the woman placing a child into adoption.

As for adoptive families being able to provide better opportunities, that is hardly guaranteed. Barack Obama was the child of a single mother who was able to become President. Reality television it littered with the offspring of rich and powerful people who are barely able to function.

As a society, I don't want women to think that the best hope for their child is in giving it to someone else to raise. If they don't want to parent then adoption is fine. But it is the women who would parent if only they had a shift in circumstances who worry me. I want to have a society where women who want to parent are given the resources to do so. Be that monetary support, or child care, or a community where women are nurtured and supported.

I think that community will also benefit families who are interested in adoption.  Currently, adoption is framed as a war over resources. Birthparents have children. Adoptive parents want children. The language treats children as commodities. A child is given in adoption. If a birthparent revokes consent they are taking the baby back. But children are not things. They belong to themselves and not to parents. A more communal approach to childrearing may help alleviate the stigma of infertility.

(I can only speak for myself as a woman who has been told that I am at high risk for fertility problems should I ever decide to try to become pregnant, but such a communal society would help me feel better about my infertility. It means that I have a part to play in raising a child as an Aunt, a mentor, and a friend. It doesn't fully eliminate any maternal need, but it does give me more respect than a culture that views motherhood as a zero-sum game.)

There is something exploitative about the way adoption is practiced in America. The narrative of adoptive parents rescuing children and that adoptees should feel grateful is all wrong. The moral element needs to be eliminated from the practice. Until that time, there are still children who are in need. Adoption may be the way we address these issues currently but I still hope that one day we can make it a better practice for all parties involved.

Cosmo Hate Read: September 2013

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A Letter to the Writer of A Letter to the Wife of my Boyfriend

Dear Writer of "A Letter to the Wife of my Boyfriend",

Life is all about deciding how to give a narrative to the things that happen to us. Some people think that everything is a sign. Others believe it is all random. You, apparently, like turning your life into a tragic romance. That's fine, I guess.

But it isn't reality.

He didn't stop the affair because he couldn't hurt you any longer. If your feelings were his primary concern he would have left the wife to be with you. Actually, he would have left his wife before being with you because he wouldn't want to place you in the position of having to keep your love a secret.

Men don't cheat because they are madly in love with the other woman. They cheat because they want to feel appreciated. You gave him something his wife couldn't. You turned his drunken kisses on the front stoop into grand romantic gestures. You made him feel like the Byronic Hero of a great tale. You appreciated every little bit of attention he gave you from the flirting over a double date to some unspecified sex act to make him stay longer. Of course he wanted to be with you. His wife didn't treat him falling asleep in her bed as a great triumph. But you did.

But all of that attention and appreciation wasn't enough for him to want to be with you full time. Maybe he realized that you were in it for the adventure. If he did leave his wife for you eventually you'd come to take him for granted the way she does. Maybe he got tired of you. Maybe he decided that the life he had with his wife was more important than the constant affirmation you gave to him.

Whatever his reasons they didn't have anything to do with you.

Queerbaiting or Shipkilling?

At ComicCon the Exec Producer of Once Upon a Time caused an uproar when he announced the show has plans for a gay relationship on the series. The angry mob wasn't the religious right, but fans of the show who ship Swan Queen (a relationship between the Evil Queen and Snow White's adult daughter Emma Swan) because along with the announcement of this future character was an official statement that Swan Queen was never going to happen and that any romantic interest between them was not intentionally written this way.

On Tumblr and Twitter Swan Queen fans are very upset, tweeting messages to the shows creators saying "I'm not intentionally saying this. Fuck You." The Swan Queen ship is one of the most vocal in the Once fandom, and have accused non-shippers of homophobia. This post, resulting from when one of the show actors stated that SQ wasn't going to happen, is a good example of some of the things the fandom says.

As a Once fan, I do NOT get Swan Queen as a couple. Both characters have had exclusively heterosexual relationships, they are constantly at odds, and the Queen tried to kill Emma at least once. That doesn't necessarily mean they can't get together. Spike and Buffy happened so anything is possible! But I never saw the obvious signs that the SQ shippers did.

What I did see was the potential for a different show. Emma is the biological mother of Henry, a child she placed for adoption. Regina is Henry's adoptive mother. Emma and Regina both are emotionally damaged people. Emma was separated from her parents and believed she was abandoned. Regina's mother killed her fiance and forced her to marry a man she didn't love. A lot of the fandom stories stripped away the fairytale background of the series to focus on a modern world where two mothers try to find a family with each other. That's what SQ fans want.

It's just that they are trying to find it in a series that is all about the fairytale background.
 
I can't speak about the difficulty of not being represented in the media. I'm a cis, white, straight, female. I have plenty of characters that represent me. I might hate what that representation is much of the time (like in rom coms) but I have Kitty Pryde and Veronica Mars, and the cat lady from The Simpsons. My grandmother was the daughter of Polish immigrants in a poor Chicago neighborhood. She used to tell me that she was so excited to see any movie where the brunette wasn't the bad girl. She wasn't going to see someone who looked like her or lived like her, but she took her media representations where she could. Some GLBT have told me of similar things in their own life. They didn't have shows that really represented their lives so they'd watch Saved by the Bell viewing Zach as being gay and hooking up with AC Slater.

And even though there is more queer characters in the media now, they still are not representative to the whole community. Finding representation where you can still happens. Sometimes shows take advantage of it and intentionally play up the subtext in order to get LBGT fans to tune in. This is called Queerbaiting.

That Feminist Dyke has a great overview of Queer baiting, although I disagree about the idea that Sherlock started Queer baiting in the first episode. I felt that the "we aren't a couple" was an attempt to make it clear to fans that they weren't going to be a couple. This is because many of the modern readings have included the homosexual context (such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes). I do believe that by the second series the show was queerbaiting, possibly because the talk about them not being a couple didn't stop the world from shipping it anyway.

Anyway, Queer baiting is a thing. It's a real thing and a real problem. Rizzoli and Isles admits that they play up the lesbian subtext even though they don't plan to ever have the girls set together. This was their promo poster for a news season.

The Once statement at SDCC seems to be the opposite of Queer baiting.  It's officially not happening. To be fair, there were plenty of reasons to not think it was going to happen before now (like the statement of other writers and actors on the show and the fact that they keep trying to murder one another). And yet people are furious with the series in a way that I haven't seen people angry with Rizzoli and Isles. They are hurt that the show has ruined their ship. I shipped Marian/Guy from Robin Hood. I know about shows killing your ship (literally). But I just didn't watch the final season of the show and went into fanfiction world where they lived happily ever after. I didn't tweet threats to the producers.

But then again, Marian and Guy were a ship for me, not a representation of me. It's natural for SQ fans to be more upset. Still, I don't know what shows are supposed to do when they find out about GBLT fans who are finding unintentional subtext in their work. If they play it up they or continue they are Queer baiting. If they come out and say that it isn't going to happen then they are accused of being homophobic (because they don't come out and state that other non-canon ships aren't real) or killing the ship. 

The answer, of course, if to have more representations of GLBT characters and relationships so that people didn't need to search subtext for characters that they relate with. Of course, that comes with its own set of issues I'll have to write about one day. I will point out that it is hard for me to agree with the charges of Buffy playing into the dead lesbian cliche when EVERY couple on the series met an unhappy ending. If they allowed Willow/Tara to be the only couple to be together it would be awfully paternalistic and pandering of the series.