Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Well, actually they did answer that question…it’s one guy.
I don’t know if it’s any more than that one dumb guy in Ms. Jenneke’s case, but the mindset is certainly out there that if a woman is highly accomplished in the looks department she can’t be highly accomplished anywhere else. I find this to be not only idiotic, but as “sexist” as anything can possibly be. Certainly more than anything else we like to go around labeling with that word these days. I mean, what could be worse? Oh, she’s good-looking…well then, keep her out of the Olympics, or any other athletic competition, or anything that isn’t strictly fixated with looks. She wants to be a model or a beauty contest champion, make sure she isn’t anything else.
Because you have to be frumpy and pear-shaped to be a winning hurdler? That is literally not going to fly. You have to be fit. And — I think, this is where the problem really is — fit people are going to be better-looking.
There’s a tennis player named Anna Kournikova who once started going around making a higher profile for herself, wearing attention-getting clothes both on & off the courts, posing for photoshoots, and so on and so forth. Then I recall someone somewhere pointed out she got beat here, there, and a bunch of other places…this is a little outside my base of knowledge, but it seemed there was a good deal of evidence provided that she wasn’t actually all that good of a tennis player. Although I’m sure she’s better than I am. But, no one that I can recall ever questioned whether she was a “serious athlete.” Nor should they have, if she was still picking up sponsorships, still playing well enough to at least compete.
That’s Anna K. Now Michelle Jenneke, and my base of knowledge is limited here as well — she’s winning quite a lot of the time at what she does, isn’t she? The one-critic doesn’t seem to be asserting otherwise.
What more do you need to do to be a serious athlete, other than be a serious athlete? I’m missing something here. Or, I hope I am anyway. You have to be a butterface or a frump-a-dump to be a serious athlete now?
Now if he wants to say the music in Michelle Jenneke’s video is not real music, well then…that has the potential to be a different conversation entirely.
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I think what is going on is, we are not supposed to enjoy the “Affirmative Action”. White Men are supposed to suffer, to pay for their crimes. But, darn it, when it comes to attractive women, well, we kind of enjoy “Ladies First”…….
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 01/11/2015 @ 10:51That, and there is endorsement-value in appealing to us. Here’s a soccer athlete, as serious as any other…
Here’s a softball athlete, as serious as any other…
And here’s a race car driver who, well…maybe this is debatable…
Funny lady. Gets pissed if she thinks anyone’s looking at her as a sex object, or something.
There’s a narrative they’re trying to fill here: The male’s time has passed, he’s sitting at home, paying alimony and child support out of his disability and welfare and unemployment checks, big ol’ white belly spilling over the waistband of his underwear as he drinks cheap beer and writes angry right-wing screeds on his Windows 98 computer. No one has anything to do with him, no one wants to. In other words — we’ve (successfully) managed to create a pariah class.
There is some truth in this. But, at the same time, an industry that does well is going to be an industry that appeals to this pariah class, so it isn’t really a pariah class at all, in some ways it’s the opposite.
And this makes some people just pig-biting mad. They want to see frumpy pear-shaped women in pant suits — or, no women at all — in any position that has visibility. Ultimately, what they want to do is eradicate gender, because gender is a definition.
- mkfreeberg | 01/11/2015 @ 11:04[…] urge you all to peruse the comments on Morgan’s post. First, because of […]
- Explaining Academia: “Social Constructions” | Rotten Chestnuts | 01/12/2015 @ 15:51Good heavens, I think I’ll take a cold shower now.
- pdwalker | 01/22/2015 @ 09:22