There are limits – especially when Lego is involved

Once upon a time there was a toy that everyone loved. Little girls and boys could play with it for hours, letting their imaginations run wild. Kids could create cities, cars, robots, houses, farms, thing-a-ma-bobs for hours on end.

And it was good.

Then along comes someone who thinks: “Hey! Kids love this toy! But they don’t buy a lot of them, because they can make so many different things; they can make castles and rocket ships and monsters and all sorts of fancy geegaws out of one simple kit. That isn’t going to make us any money! Let’s make it so that kids will want to only make one thing out of one set of this wonderful toy. That way, when they want to build something else, their parents will have to buy another set, and so on and so forth”

And it wasn’t so good.

So our someone thinks: “Well, that isn’t working so well, so let’s actively market it to boys, with manly men and big guns and epic battles. Get their testosterone running.” And they did

And it was good, for the company, that is until their market share stopped growing.

So, what is our intrepid toy company someone to do? Well, it’s time to create a toy for girls, with girly things, like shopping, and hanging around a coffee shop and imitating Britney Spears, and oh! a science lab with a robot to quiet down the feminists, and doggies to brush……

And it wasn’t so good. Because now mom’s are getting pissed off.

This is the story of Lego, a company that once championed children’s creativity, but now is nothing more than a purveyor of overpriced toys that piggy backs on popular culture.

Okay, that may be a little harsh. I loved Legos as a kid, my kids love and play with Legos now. But here’s the thing. I refuse to buy the kits. The Legos my kids play with are all bought at garage sales and at the Sally Ann. Why? Because I don’t want anyone telling them what those colorful little blocks *should* be. That is what their imagination is for.

Which brings me to Lego Friends – a product purposefully developed for girls, with input from girls. I guess the bigwigs from Lego felt they were missing a piece of the Disney Princess pie and acted accordingly.

And this is what 4 years of intensive study and $40 million gets you:

A coffee shop, a beauty salon, a fashion designer, doggies and a Katy Perry wannabe.

That’s it Lego? That’s all you got? Who exactly did you poll, the Toddlers and Tiaras set?

I object to this on two levels.

The first is the fact that, yet again, a toy company is pushing shallow values and rampant commercialism on our girls.  While the boys are out saving the world as Han Solo or Harry Potter, our girls are designing dresses and having their nails done.

Okay, I know creating a toy environmental activist would be really, really difficult. How much fun can cleaning up a riverbank be for a 5 year old, I get that. But this is this the sum total of what it means to be a girl? Driving a fancy car and hanging out in a coffee shop drinking overpriced beverages.

Is this as meaningful as our daughter’s lives get?

Why is a company that is built on children’s creativity as it’s bread and butter so hell bent on pigeonholing girls into a limited, shallow and crassly commercial niche?

And this brings me to my second point, why are we segregating toys to begin with? Yes, I understand that kids tend to gravitate towards certain toys based on gender, girls towards more social type toys such as dolls, while boys like action and building toys. That’s fine, but shouldn’t we encourage our boys to be more social and our girls to build things and be more active? Isn’t that part of our jobs as parents to raise healthy, well rounded individuals?

And what about those kids who don’t fit that narrowly defined space of boy/girl? Don’t we owe it to those kids to help them feel comfortable in their own skin and not belittle or marginalize their interest just because it isn’t “girly” or “manly “enough?

I will never forget the time I was in the toy section of the Walmart back in Kapuskasing and a little girl got excited about a set of Tinker Toys. She raced over to her dad to show him what she found. You know what he said?

“Put that back, these are for boys. You don’t want to play with these.”

He actually looked embarrassed.

That poor little girl was crushed. She trudged away, shoulders slumped and my heart just broke. When she was alone, staring longingly at the Tinker Toys, I scooted over and told her that my sister liked to play with that exact toy when she was a little girl and now she sends experiments up in the space shuttle and tells the astronauts what to do. She looked at me and smiled, but I could tell she didn’t believe me.

I’ve wondered ever since if the world lost a brilliant mind that day.

And it isn’t just the girls who are hurt by this type of narrow-minded messaging. It also limits the boys, firstly by presenting them with only one version of masculinity – the testosterone driven, highly aggressive one, and it also sets up the expectation among girls that their romantic partner is going to be the ‘prince’ that sweeps them away and makes everything perfect. That’s a hell of a lot of responsibility for anyone, child or adult.  Why can’t a boy play dog groomer, or a fashion designer? Why can’t they expect their life partner to take control of their own happiness and contribute equally to the relationship?

That’s what these toys are selling our children.

I read an article a few years ago by The Toronto Star’s Michelle Landsberg where she marveled at the many ways one could be a woman these days. One could be soft and feminine, strong and powerful, or somewhere in between. It was amazing to her that in this day and age we women finally had the choice. That is what feminism means, women have the choice to be what *we* want to be, housewive or CEO – it is okay to be either.

This is not about pink or blue. Not really. It’s about placing limits on something that should be limitless, the potential of a child, to be anything, to do anything. And these toys are doing that to girls by sending out a message that their lives should be one of mindless comfort, no demands, no challenges, no victories.

Which begs the question, why are companies trying to tell our daughters what they should be?

And why are we letting them?

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VIDEOS:

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BLOGS

• Gizmodo
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Petition: Tell LEGO to stop selling out girls! #LiberateLEGOs

Can’t Run? Can’t Scream? We’ve Got an App For That! (Thankfully)

Ladies, remember when you were at university, you were given a rape whistle, usually during Frosh Week? You were told to carry it around with you *just in case*. How many of you actually did? How many of you just looked at it and thought it was the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen? After all, if you’re being threatened by some knuckle-dragger, how likely was it that you’d be able to fish the thing out, bring it to your lips and actually blow loud enough to either a) attract attention or b) scare the bastard off?

I never carried one. My favorite form of protection was my very heavy dorm room key that I placed between the fingers of my clenched fist. I figured I would be able to hit whoever was attacking me in either the throat or the eyes with my mean right hook. Baring that, I had another couple of tricks up my sleeve that I was taught by some concerned male friends – neither of which involved going for the groin, and both of which, if applied properly, could seriously maim someone if I managed to connect.

Luckily, I’ve never had to use any of those techniques, but I am, unfortunately, in the minority on this one.

Well, the (not so) handy dandy rape whistle has been updated for the new millenium by the wonderful people at YWCA Canada.

The YWCA Safety Siren for the iPhone and the iTouch has a choice of 3 sirens that go off if either the application’s pink button is pressed, or the phone is shaken. The program then sends out an email to a safety contact listing your approximate location using Google Maps and calls a pre-set number to get help, again providing your approximate coordinates. But that’s not all this application does. The Safety Siren App also includes information of how to date and hook up safely, a guide to guys good and bad, and if the worst happens, it can provide a map of the nearest health and rape crisis centers.

Corinne Rusch-Drutz, YWCA Canada’s director of communications and membership development explains:

“We do ongoing programming for women and girls, we’re one of the largest service providers for girls’ programming and we’re certainly the largest provider of shelter for women in the country so it just seemed natural to connect young women with violence prevention on their phones because that’s where they live,”

“For us it was a perfect fit. That’s because they carry it with them wherever they go, and it’s private. And they’re more likely to look up content like the information we’re providing than they would on a personal computer which they may be sharing with somebody else.’’

For now, the application is only available for the iPhone or iPod Touch, but hopefully YWCA Canada will be creating versions for other 3G phones soon.

You can download the YWCA Safety Siren at the iTunes App Store.

What Is With The Surprise?

Iron Man 2 - Chick Flick?

Lisa Schwartzbaum of Entertainment Weekly wrote an excellent article about the studio’s surprise that Iron Man 2 is playing so well to female audiences. According to Indie Wire, the report upon which Schwartzbaum’s article is based:

“What you’ll see on Sunday is people taking their moms to see Iron Man,” says Paramount distribution executive vp Don Harris. “You can’t make a statistic like that up.” In tracking, the female figures for Iron Man 2 were so high, adds Harris, “you would expect such numbers from a film like Sex and the City 2.”

Why? Why is it, that in this day and age that it’s surprising for women to enjoy science fiction/comic books/action movies?

There has always been a strong fan base among women for the nerdy and the geeky. How many little girls grew up playing Princess Leia or Wonder Woman or Jamie Summers? Take a look at Science Fiction literature; some of the greatest authors of the genre are women. Mary Shelley, Andre Norton, Ursula K. LeGuin, Sheri Tepper have all created iconic tales of speculative fiction. As a mater of fact, the concept of the secret identity was originated by a woman, Baroness Emma Orczy, author of the Scarlet Pimpernel published in 1903.

If women write the stuff, it would follow that women would read it, right?

The simple fact of the matter is that comic books and Spec-Fic is rife with themes that interest women and draw them in. It may not be the same things that interest men, but they are there just the same. For example, the Xmen comic deals with lots of masculine themes, but there are also the relationships that interest  women readers – Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Jean and Scott, Storm and T’Challa all have a strong appeal to female readers. We may not care so much about the bang bang shoot’em ups, but the outcomes and the consequences are far more rewarding for a woman reader than for a man.

This obviously translates to the big screen and television. Buffy, Ripley, Trinity and most recently Avatar’s Neytiri have all drawn in female audiences. These are our role models. We don’t see many iconic female characters outside of Science Fiction/Fantasy movies that as girls we look up to. So of course we’re going to go see films in these genres to find more of the same. And we’re going to bring our daughters with us, growing the audience.

It just makes sense.

A few years ago, Hollywood was hot for female action movies. They were going to revolutionize the genre. What did we get? Catwoman and Elektra, two of the worst superhero movies ever made. The suits didn’t understand it at the time. There was a huge demand for women in more heroic roles, why did these films fail? Why didn’t they get the audience that they expected?

Probably because the writing was crap. All there was to these movies were women in skimpy clothes prancing around. There was no human interactions, no relationships that women could be invest in. The stories were practically non-existent, the acting was wooden and the premise was ridiculous. As a result Hollywood has pretty much turned it’s back on the prospect. The Wonder Woman movie has been sitting in pre-production hell for 3 years because the studios can’t wrap their head around the fact that what women want are great characters, strong stories and compelling relationships. Having a female centric film is icing on the cake.

It was my mother who sat down and watched Wonder Woman and Doctor Who with me. She’s the one who introduced Sprout to Star Trek – another show with some amazingly strong women characters. Women have always been interested in Science Fiction and related works. The reason why Iron Man 2 works with women is because the main character is charming, his struggles are compelling and relationships are believable. Yes, we do enjoy the special effects and the explosions just as much as the guys, being a FX-geek I can say that. But they aren’t what brings us in. If the studios can keep making movies of Iron Man’s caliber, women audiences are going to keep coming and the numbers are going to grow.

Maybe this is the start of Hollywood actually getting it and start handing off these fantastic properties with strong women characters to great writers and directors. It’s in their best interest, but we fangirls have to demand it.

Via: Entertainment Weekly, Indie Wire.

I Actually Agree With Everything in This Post…

Okay, I agree with almost everything in this article on 10 Comic-Book-Heroines We Want in Movies. Beyoncé as Wonder Woman? That gets a big no for me. An no mention of Joss Whedon? I know I gush on him a lot, but he is the master at writing and directing strong female roles. Pop him in as either the director for any Domino or Jenny Sparks movie and I’m there faster than Zatana can say Arbadacarba!

Another area to find strong women heroines would be online. There’s a lot of untapped potential there. Personally I would love to see a Girl Genius movie. Agatha Heterodyne would make a perfect super hero. She’s strong, resourceful, smart and beautiful. But the question is, who would play her? Maybe Scarlett Johansson should look at developing the role for herself instead of trying to get a Black Widow movie made. Interestingly, Black Widow didn’t make the EW list.

I’m hoping that this is more than a pipe dream. Remember what happened the last time Hollywood was hot to trot for female action stars? We got Catwoman and Elektra.

*SHUDDER*

What the World Needs Now Are More Brontësauruses!

I *MUST* have these:

AWESOMESAUCE!

Via: Stargazing

Why Kristin Chenoweth Is Awesome As Hell

Newsweek published an article by Ramin Setoodeh this week basically stating the gay actors can’t play straight roles – not shouldn’t, couldn’t. Never mind the long standing tradition in Hollywood that keeps gay actors closeted *cough* Kevin Spacey *cough* Cary Grant *cough* Jodie Foster *cough*, I cannot believe that someone could post something so ignorant.

The simple fact of the matter is that it isn’t the actors sexuality that’s the problem, it’s audiences perceptions and prejudices that are the problem. An actor who is good at his or her job is able to to take people out of reality and tell them a story. It’s only when a viewer refuses to let go of their preconceived notions about a person that this isn’t able to happen for them as they sit in the audience.  A fact Kristin Chenoweth ably makes in her rebuttle to Setoodeh’s article:

As a longtime fan of Newsweek and as the actress currently starring opposite the incredibly talented (and sexy!) Sean Hayes in the Broadway revival of “Promises, Promises,” I was shocked on many levels to see Newsweek publishing Ramin Setoodeh’s horrendously homophobic “Straight Jacket,” which argues that gay actors are simply unfit to play straight. From where I stand, on stage, with Hayes, every night — I’ve observed nothing “wooden” or “weird” in his performance, nor have I noticed the seemingly unwieldy presence of a “pink elephant” in the Broadway Theater. (The Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Tony members must have also missed that large animal when nominating Hayes’ performance for its highest honors this year.) I’d normally keep silent on such matters and write such small-minded viewpoints off as perhaps a blip in common sense. But the offense I take to this article, and your decision to publish it, is not really even related to my profession or my work with Hayes or Jonathan Groff (also singled out in the article as too “queeny” to play “straight.”) This article offends me because I am a human being, a woman and a Christian. For example, there was a time when Jewish actors had to change their names because anti-Semites thought no Jew could convincingly play Gentile. Setoodeh even goes so far as to justify his knee-jerk homophobic reaction to gay actors by accepting and endorsing that “as viewers, we are molded by a society obsessed with dissecting sexuality, starting with the locker room torture in junior high school.” Really? We want to maintain and proliferate the same kind of bullying that makes children cry and in some recent cases have even taken their own lives?

Final Rumblings

Well, Boobquake 2010 is almost past, and unless there is a massive earthquake in the next 3 hours and 40 minutes, the planet has escaped reasonably unscathed. It remains to be seen if the event will continue. I personally think Jen McCreight, the woman who is responsible for unleashing the MMDs*, will need at least five years of events to track a statistical trend, but then I almost failed stats at university, so what do I know.

At any rate, it looks like people had a fun with the event. Well, most people. It seems there’s a small group out there that feels Boobquake runs against feminist ideas and called for a Brainquake instead.

First off, let me be clear about something. I love the idea of a Brainquake, an event where women can show off their accomplishments and awards, I’m thinking we should hold one 6 months from now, on September 26, 2010. We should shout it from the roof tops that women do amazing things in the fields of science, engineering, business, politics etc. Largely these accomplishments go unrecognized, so lets bang a gong and celebrate.

That being said, Boobquake responded to Iranian cleric Sedighi’s challenge to the physical expression of our femininity, not our intellect. As a matter of fact, Iranian women are well-educated, they comprise up to 60% of entrants to Tehran’s university. They are not shut out from institutions of higher education. So to respond with a display of women’s intellectual capacity and accomplishments is nonsensical. He made a quantifiable statement – seeing women’s bodies incurs Gods (TM) wrath in the form of earthquakes. To test and challenge that assertion means women have to dress immodestly – from low-cut blouses and daisy dukes to abayas without socks.

And that, according to Brainquakers is falling  into the patriarchal trap of reducing women to nothing more than their bodies.

And that assertion really bothers me. It seems to me that this response is patriarchal itself by saying that my body, and the display of my body can be nothing more than a result of my victimization by a culture that worships women’s beauty at the detriment of her brain. My body cannot be subversive. It cannot be political. It cannot be a free expression of my character.

Bullshit!

I thought the whole point of feminism was that women were valued for more than their bodies. One could be beautiful and blond and smart all at the same time. Or short, dumpy and plain and still be accomplished. Women’s clothing and how they dress should be a means of self-expression. I personally wear most of my clothes showing a fair amount of cleavage – it’s part of my fashion philosophy: look at my boobs, not at my butt. Why? Because *I* like it that way. I dress this way because I am confident, powerful, beautiful and comfortable in my skin, not because I am a victim of a misogynistic culture. The reverse is actually true. I’m seriously overweight and as a result society tells me that I should cover up, try to camouflage myself so I can fade into the background.

Screw that! My clothing is my rebellion. And guess what? The same can be said about Iranian women’s dress. They’ve been finding ways to subvert the Islamic rule regarding modest dressing by using make up and other means for years.

Launching MMDs* on an unsuspecting world

*MMDs = Mammaries of Mass Destruction

We women understand the power of the boobie.  They have the power to turn reasonably intelligent, eloquent men into gibbering idiots. I know this to be true, because just a simple flash of my luscious lady mounds can stop my DH in mid-sentence and cause him to completely lose his train of thought. His eyes go glassy and he gets this blank look on his face as though he’s just been confronted by a 3 line solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem (if you’re wondering, the actual solution is about 500 pages long).

But ladies, did you know that our sweater puppies can cause the earth to move?

No, not like that, I mean an actual earthquake? According to Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader, showing your cha-cha’s causes the ground to shake:

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,”

Iran lives in one of the most earthquake prone regions of the world. The 2003 quake in Bam, a city in southern Iran, killed over 30,000 people.

So, what should people do? Relocate to a safer part of the country? No, don’t be silly.  According to Sedighi:

“There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”

Yeah, that will stabilize the tectonic plates that are shifting under Tehran as we speak. Besides, isn’t Iran one of the most conservative Muslim nation on the planet? Aren’t women already forced to go about their daily business covered head to foot so as not to cause ‘temptation’? Given their moral superiority over the rest of the fabricly challenged world, shouldn’t they be free of earthquakes? If you follow this man’s logic, shouldn’t a place like Brazil, or the south of France, where lots of people are practically naked all the time, be a hotspot for geological activity, not someplace, like, I don’t know, Iceland?

At any rate, this whole ‘blame the loose women for the ills of the world’ attitude did not sit well with fourth year Purdue student, Jen McCreight. She issued a challenge last Monday on her Blag Hag blog for women to set their marimbas free on Monday, April 26th to see what kind of  geological destruction they can unleash on the world – all in the name of science of course.

“Time for a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.

So, who’s with me? I may be a D cup, but that will probably only produce a slight tremor on its own. If you’ll be joining me on twitter, use the tag #boobquake!”

There are two pages set up for the event on Facebook that has already attracted over 33,000 women since Monday ( Boobquake page 1, Boobquake page 2).

The response has been overwhelming for McCreight:

“So what started as a joke and somewhat sarcastic reply to the ludicrous notion that women’s immodesty causes earthquakes has now exploded. Seriously, internet, you scare and amaze me sometimes.”

She has since had to refine her challenge somewhat:

I just want to apologize if this comes off as demeaning toward women. To be honest, it started as silly joke that I hurriedly fired off since I was about to miss the beginning of House. I never thought it would get the attention it did. If I would have known, I would have spent more time being careful about my wording.

That being said, I don’t think the event is completely contrary to feminist ideals. I’m asking women to wear their most “immodest” outfit that they already would wear, but to coordinate it all on the same day for the sake of the experiment. Heck, just showing an ankle would be considered immodest by some people. I don’t want to force people out of their comfort zones, because I believe women have the right to choose how they want to dress. Please don’t pressure women to participate if they don’t want to. If men ogle, that’s the fault of the men, not me for dressing how I like. If I want to a show a little cleavage or joke about my boobs, that’s my prerogative.

In order to keep the project scientifically relevant, she also plans on doing a statistical analysis on the effect of Monday’s Boobquake event:

And to the scientists who are concerned with my methods – don’t worry, I fully plan on doing some statistics after the event. I know many earthquakes happen on a daily basis, so we’re looking to see if Boobquake significantly increases the number or severity of earthquakes. Or if an earthquake strikes West Lafayette, IN and only kills me, that may be good evidence of God’s wrath as well (I’m not too concerned). And yes, I know I need a larger sample size to make this good science. Maybe I’ll include Mardi [G]ras in my calculations.

So, who’s with me? I’ll be taking part in the event wearing my favorite (and conversely my mother’s most hated) shirt, a purple tunic top with a scandalously deep square neckline on Monday to see what the effect is. If you participate, remember, you’ll be holding the fate of the world in your D-cups!

Alternately, my husband thinks a flash mob of immodestly dressed women should have a sit in at the Iranian Embassy. And yes, the pun was intentional.

ETA: Culture Shocks’ interview with Jen McCreight

Via: Blag Hag, The Toronto Star and The Associated Press

‘Tis the week for being surprised

First Tron Legacy, now Robin Hood…..

I’ve haven’t heard a lot of good buzz about the upcoming Robin Hood movie starring Russel Crowe and Cate Blanchett, but the trailer hopefully will change that.  It will be nice to see both Crowe and director Ridley Scott springing back to form after the middling success of American Gangster and Body of Lies.

[EDIT:  Yes!  YouTube now has it up.  No need for the jump to Yahoo Movies, but they do have some extra content you might be interested in.]

The thing I find intriguing is that Maid Marian appears to become a more active player, picking up a bow and wearing armour in this version.  It’s interesting in terms of the character’s evolution.  Looking back to Kevin Costner’s version, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s portrayal, Marian starts out strong, defending herself and her home, but in the end wimps out and needs Robin to save her from the Sheriff.  Of course in earlier versions, Marian is nothing more than window dressing, prettying up the confines of Sherwood Forest and providing a reason for some daring do for Robin and his men, so any action on her part will be an improvement.  I’ll be interested to see how exactly her character develops throughout the film.

Oscar Wrap-up

So, who watched the Oscars last night?

To be honest, I didn’t, but I did follow the live updates at Entertainment Weekly (hey!  I’m a busy girl!).

BEST PICTURE

So, the big win, Best Picture,  went to The Hurt Locker instead of Avatar.  I haven’t seen Locker yet, so I can’t say that  it deserved to win, but I do know that Avatar did not deserve the Best Picture award either.  (I’m sorry, can you gasp a little louder?)

As much as I loved Avatar, I don’t think it deserved to win Best Picture or Best Director.  Technically, it was a spot on movie.  You cannot fault the way this movie was made – Richard Taylor and James Cameron are GODS when it comes to pushing technology towards bigger and better things.  Avatar was an immersive experience that was not to be missed.

Take all that away however, take away the effects, take away the 3D, take away all the technology and what do you have left?  You have story, you have character, that’s it.  We’ve seen this story before, pretty much exactly as presented here, numerous times in the past.  We even saw it earlier in the year with District 9, although in that case the assimilation of the Van De Merwe was not by choice and it certainly wasn’t welcome.

As for character, they were retreads of all the old tropes we’ve seen time and time again.  The visionary scientist, the conflicted loner, the blood-thirsty soldier, the greedy corporate shill, the noble savage.  Yada yada yada. It would have been nice if Cameron had played with our expectations when it came to these people, brought us some fresh insight, but he didn’t. It was all very superficial and disappointing

Movie making needs to be about so much more than computer wizardry and big explosions.   Without character or story, a film is simply an experience.  It’s just an empty shell, and while people can and still do enjoy the big bangs – I know I do, there’s nothing wrong with that, at the end of the day, it’s still hollow.

I think any Best Picture winner should successfully marry both technology and narrative  while recognizing that the experience serves the story/character not the other way around.  If we work from that criteria, Avatar just didn’t deserve to win.

So, congratulations James Cameron on the technical awards, they were much deserved.  And for now, I’ll reserve judgement on The Hurt Locker winning Best Picture.

BEST DIRECTOR

There was a lot of talk about Kathryn Bigelow being nominated for Best Director, how her win would be a historic step forward for women directors, blah, blah, blah…

And yes, all this is true, but did anyone notice that her film could best be described as a testosterone fueled joy ride?  In other words, a guy-flick?  Basically she proved that girls can blow things up as good as the big boys.  As I mentioned before, I haven’t seen the film yet, so it might be more character driven than I’m given to believe after seeing the trailers and reading the reviews.  And while I’m happy that Bigelow won, I’ll be happier when a woman director wins the prize for a film that has a decidedly feminine voice.  When women’s stories are seen as being as worthy of praise/awards/money as anything made by a man.  Actually, I’ll be truly happy when gender doesn’t enter into it.  All this brouhaha reminds me of a speech by Joss Whedon where he discusses why he writes strong women characters:  “Because you’re still asking me that question.”

See Joss’ beautiful speech here.

When women directors who win awards are no longer a novelty, then I’ll say that women have arrived in Hollywood.

Okay, on to the really important stuff…..

THE DRESSES

I swear, this is the real reason so many people tune in.

Here are my top three best dresses:

This is my favorite dress of the night. The colour, the cut, the draping are all perfect.  And I love how Molly accessorized it.  Simple and elegant.	This is how ruffles are meant to be worn. They accentuate the dress and the wearer’s shape instead of looking like they are trying to eat you.	Wow!  Does Kristen Stewart ever clean up well.  Too bad no one’s taught her how to smile yet.

And here are my picks for Worst Dressed:

This is a dress a 80 year old matron would wear.  The colours are washed out, and there is simply too much dress for such a petite girl.	I didn’t know they were still making yellow Hefty bags!  Truth be told, this dress would probably not be so bad if it was tailored a bit more, and was a bolder colour.  And could someone please show SJP how to do her makeup?	I really wanted to love this dress.  I love the colours and it’s so sparkly, but I can’t get on board with a dress that looks like someone wrapped a dish towel around the waist and then glued bath poofs on the hem.

But you know what these Oscars are missing? A Bjork or a Tilda Swinton dress. I really look forward to some absolutely horrible outfit that really sets the tongues wagging. It didn’t happen this year and I miss it.

What do you think?