Recently in Links and Carnivals

First of all, it's time for everybody to get involved with Racebending.com, the protest effort over the casting of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Please go ahead, I'll wait.

Thanks!

Allrighty, so here are some links about items we've discussed lately, which you may already have seen since you probably read these blogs, but presented for completeness:

• X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Same Old Story by the angry black woman at Feminist SF - The Blog!
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine - The Greatest Story Never Told? at Fantasy Magazine.
• Star Trek doesn't update the gender roles by Ariel Wetzel at Feminist SF - The Blog!
• Live Long and Prosper at In Other Words.
• To Boldly Go...Backwards by Jennifer Weiner at The Huffington Post
• Star Trek's Reboot Seeks Out New Life, New Civilizations, New Audiences by Liza Paitz Spindler on Caution: Writers at Play. See particularly the section on Danger Gals.
• Star Trek's Gender Problem at Women in Hollywood.
• Working in the Dollhouse by Shannan Palma at Feminist SF - The Blog!
• Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, Just Like Ibsen's Except With More Yoga Pants at The Rest is Cream Cheese.

Some older pieces I enjoyed:

How movies/TV help to change social norms (for better or worse) at Anthro Goggles.

Stories for Men. Just go read it, seriously.

The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters on Cracked.com. (This one's for Grace, love ya!)

The Day the Earth Stood Still Would've Been Great, If it Hadn't Been So Underwhelming by Mana G at All Mirth and No Matter. I was totally sympathizing with the "wow look at all this non suckiness and yet this movie is so boring oh well" vibe.

Babylon AD: Yet Another Scifi Flick About the Virgin Mary by Annalee Newitz on io9.

Terrified Waitresses and Chicks Who Kick Ass at Brutal Women, about the Terminator series.

Also don't miss the 3rd Tell It WOC Speak Carnival, Voices Have Power, and the first Asian Women's Carnival.

And that's it for this time. Coming up in a couple of days, I think we'll do a little preview of the rest of 2009 in new releases...

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New Video Game Technology Finally Allows Rendering Of Smaller Breasts

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Zoe Saldana's Playing Uhura! on TransGriot. (I don't know how I missed out on reading TransGriot until last week, but if it's not in your feed reader yet, you should fix that immediately.)

A Call for Diversity in Web TV on Everyday Goddess.

Especially in light of the conversation in the comments on Grace's review of Dragonball Evolution, I found A Chocolate Coating to make the Bitter White Pill Go Down Easier by nojojojo on The Angry Black Woman quite informative. And freakin' depresssing.

The Incredibles by Mz Razorblade at The F-Word.

Best. Starship Captain. Ever. at OverMediated.

Media Ethics, Blogging & "Battlestar Galactica" at Megan's Minute. What I find so interesting about this is how anyone writing about BSG and feminism had NOT come across the Feminist SF post in question.

Movie review: Watchmen at WriteBlack.

That's why it's called go-go, not cry-cry by Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon, regarding Tarantino's Grindhouse.

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I put this together over the weekend, and was all set to publish it this morning, when I found this post about Observe and Report by Seth Rogen over at Tiger Beatdown, via this post at The Curvature. I feel sick now. If you're a sexual assault survivor and you're not in a good place, take a pass on reading about this movie, but everyone else really needs to head over there, read, and then tell me that feminism is no longer necessary because everything is peachy keen for women living in this society.

Moving on...

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It's been a long, long time since I did one of these, and I'd like to get back in the swing of things. So here are some links, old and new, for your perusal and enjoyment, and links back to our reviews of some of the movies referenced in case you missed them the first time around. Cheers!

I will not die for your amusement by Yonmei over at Feminist SF - The Blog, about Lesbian Vampire Killers and Watchmen.

Danger Gal Friday: Mary Embrey by Lisa Paitz Spindler, on Charlize Theron's character in the film Hancock. Her take on it is definitely worth reading, though I ultimately feel differently about the character.

Revisiting 'Dollhouse' by Arturo R. García at Racialicious. (Grace's review of Dollhouse.)

Women Directing Action Flicks at Women and Hollywood

unsettling moments in resident evil: extinction (triggering and spoilered) at the LJ feminist film community, written by a person. (my review of Resident Evil: Extinction.)

Frank Miller's "300″ and the Persistence of Accepted Racism by Jehanzeb Dar of Broken Mystic, also published on Racialicious. (Grace's review of 300 and her addendum on the rape issue.)

Kill Bill by Aideen Johnston at The F-Word. (Grace's review of Kill Bill.)

The Girly Gun: Gender in Mr. And Mrs. Smith by Revena at The Hathor Legacy. (Grace's review of Mr. and Mrs. Smith.)

The Girls Who Lived by Sigrid Ellis at Thinking Too Much.

Badass Feminist of the Week: Sarah Connor‏ by Sabina at Not Just Movies. (Grace's review of Terminator 2.)

Also check out the first Asian Women's Carnival.

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Over at Cracked, Jennifer Liang has posted a list of Hollywood's 5 Saddest Attempts at Feminism. She identifies five female action movie characters who were inserted into the plots to fill the "feisty woman" role, but didn't quite deliver as heroines. You'll have to go on over there for yourself and see who she chose, but I can't help but share one quip, about Cleopatra, whom Liang mentions in passing:

...regardless of what actually happened, [she] has always been fictionalized as having seduced the world with the sheer force of her boobies.

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Since I haven't done one of these for, oh, I don't know, eight years, there's a lot here.

Summer Movies - Wall-E and Wanted by Latoya Peterson on Racialicious. She links to a couple of good pieces about Wanted (in addition to Grace's review) and adds her own thoughts - not to be missed.

Also not to be missed is A Fat Acceptance Activist's take on "Wanted" at one of my new favorite blogs, Big Fat Deal. I don't know who Lucinda, the author of the review is, but girlfriend can write.

Then there's Comic-Con Diary: Where the Girls Are by Karina Longworth, which I found via Women & Hollywood. Wow. Wow. Wow. So much there, I don't even know where to start.

On a lighter note, I disagree with 5 Ways Superhero Movies Would Be Different if a Chick Wrote Them on #5 and #2, but I endorse the other three.

That link came to my attention via Superheroes and Women: How About Some More Women Superheroes, Already? by SuperJive on BlogHer. My favorite quote is by Alyssa Royse (disclaimer: she also pays me to blog on one of her sites):

I want a female superhero that people swoon over for what she does, and can non nonchalantly walk away smacking her own ass saying, "oh, this old thing, i forgot i had it!"

As you probably already know, Hellboy totally sucked. Thanks Patrick at the Hathor Legacy for a solid review. WOC PhD also took it to task.

Not been a surprise, but depressing anyway: Sienna Miller wore fake boobs to play The Baroness in G.I. Joe.

Slant Eye for the Round Eye thought Chocolate was good, but I still have suspicions about having an "autistic" action heroine. I need to dig around and see if anyone in the disability community caught this and what they thought.

Jessica Barnes of Cinematical thinks the teaser trailer for The Mutant Chronicles looks bad, but I'm still holding out some hope for some ass-kicking heroine-ism from Devon Aoki.

Scott Weinberg of Cinematical and Meredith Woerner of io9 think there should be a Resident Evil 4. Apparently the increasing levels of racism and sexism in the franchise has escaped their attention. I can't imagine how RE would top itself after the third one.

Women's roller derby comedy: action or embarrassment? I'm sure Grace won't be able to stay away, so our faithful readers will probably find out.

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On three hours of sleep last night, this is what I have for you:

Raiders of the Source Material on Sloganeering.org.

Zoe Saldana Talks To io9 About Star Trek And Avatar. Here's the bit that got me:

io9: Tell me about being a one of the few women on the Enterprise?

Saldana: I think it's awesome. To be on the Enterprise with all these guys, the message speaks loudly. She's a female, she's of high rank and she has her shit together. And never is it ever about, or was it ever about her female presence. It was pretty great. I loved being the only girl.

Yes, yes it does speak loudly. I just don't think it says what Saldana thinks it says.

I don't always agree with Elisabeth Rappe on Cinematical, but I'm glad she's writing there. Latest: Re-Raiding the Tomb, No Actress Yet for 'Witchblade' -- But We've Got the Teaser Poster. Monika Barytzel also posted pics from Street Fighter. (Ohmygosh, three posts actually written by women about women in action movies on a mainstream movie blog? I'm obviously dreaming.)

Bring On The Bond Girls? at the f-word Blog

Danger Gal Maybes. We'll See. by Lisa Paitz Spindler.

Coming soon to a theater near you: Immortal Kickboxer by Bao Phi, posted on Racialicious.

I'm sure there have been some carnivals and stuff. Maybe next week I will find them.

Posted by Skye in Links and Carnivals
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Grace and I are looking for guest reviewers to cover Speed Racer and Prince Caspian (plus an optional extra review of Narnia) in the next few weeks. We would appreciate someone who will take a look at the films in terms of feminism and anti-racism, while also monitoring for class, national origin, sexual orientation, disability issues, etc. If you want to take one or both, please email us ASAP. If you don't have a blog, that's fine, as long as you can send us a brief writing sample so we know your review won't come out "HEY DUDEZ THIS F1LM RUUUUULD!!!"

Now on to the links.

First, a big ol' apology to the always awesome People of Colour in SF Carnival, which posted a day or two before we did our carnival last week. My Google Reader was overflowing and I totally missed it. Go there! Go there now!

News blurbs recently:

• Ghost in the Shell going to be adapted in 3-D.
• Moon Bloodgood has been cast as the female lead in Terminator 4 (she's also now in Street Fighter, says Cinematical)
• Finally, A Dystopia Grim Enough For Vin Diesel with stills from Babylon A.D. on io9

Bizarre interview reprinted from USA Today at ComicBookMovie.com: The Supergirlfriends of Batman, Hulk & Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow apparently thinks "Comic books are still for boys." Maybe that's why she was so lifeless in Iron Man? Maybe if you're going to get caught sneaking into an office, you should at least TRY to bluff instead of just looking terrified? Maybe when your boyfriend is on the roof, you could try yelling "Get off the roof, dammit!" instead of screaming "But you'll die!"

To be fair, Patrick at The Hathor legacy thought Pepper was fine. Jess McCabe has something to say about it on The F-Word blog, and links to this awesome post at WOC PhD.

Elisabeth Rappe over at Cinematical asserts that Frank Miller Loves Tough Girls, in reference to the forthcoming film The Spirit.

(I love the descriptions of the women in this synopsis from Lionsgate:

...a bevy of beautiful women who either want to seduce, love or kill our masked crusader. Surrounding him at every turn are ELLEN DOLAN (Sarah Paulson), the whip-smart girl-next-door; SILKEN FLOSS (Scarlett Johansson), a punk secretary and frigid vixen; PLASTER OF PARIS (Paz Vega), a murderous French nightclub dancer; LORELEI (Jaime King), a phantom siren; and MORGENSTERN (Stana Katic), a sexy young cop. Then of course, there's SAND SAREF (Eva Mendes), the jewel thief with dangerous curves. She's the love of his life turned bad.

With characters like that, how can we lose? Oh, I mean, how can we win?)

Sarah Seltzer gives us a little link love in Take Back The Screen at R H RealityCheck, analyzing the portrayal of rape and assault in film. She mentions 300 and Spiderman, so go take a look.

I have a really hard time believing that Zombie Strippers is an intellectual feast.

The 58th Carnival of the Feminists is up at Be A Good Human, who then moved to Hop To It.

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Welcome to the 21st Edition of the Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans. We're glad to include some new voices this time as well as some old favorites.

Props to Uncool, host of the 53rd Carnival of the Feminists, for clever use of alphabetization as a carnival organizing technique. It's not as lush as the technique we used last time, which was to spend 1.2 million hours organizing by theme and including long quotes and pictures, but doing it this way meant we could actually get it done!

So here we go...

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A few news items about movies I've been tracking. Cinematical says Rose McGowan is Still Barbarella. Also, Rogue Giving Femme-Centric Comic Book a Chance - 'Hack/Slash' on the Way. Then, we find out that Michelle Yeoh is in Babylon A.D. as a butt-kicking nun, but the movie has been edited from 160 to 90 minutes. Yikes. Finally, Radha Mitchell, who was in Silent Hill, poor thing, will be in a sci-fi thriller called The Surrogates. Can't quite tell if it's an action role, but it looks promising.

There is going to be another Ultraviolet, this time anime. All I can do is show you the entirety of the notes I took when I reviewed it:

And not in that good way.

You should read Firefly: The Trouble With Saffron by Purtek at The Hathor Legacy.

The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film is being created at San Diego State University.

The Carnival of Allies has been announced at The Angry Black Woman. The April edition of Cerise is up. The 57th Carnival of the Feminists is up.

And an old one: Decoding Hot Girl-on-Girl Action by Lisa Jervis, LiP Magazine, as published on Alternet.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Posted by Skye in Links and Carnivals
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