Year: 2008

Whoydensday: Old vs New, strengths and weaknesses

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As part of an excellent essay on the role of the Nostalgia Factor in the Russell T. Davies (RTD) era of Doctor Who, Iain Clark makes many excellent points about both the new and the old series of Who, why Sarah Jane Smith was really the only choice as a returning former-companion for the new generation of Who-watchers, and the differing emphasis paid to character vs story in each.

Clark is writing what purports to be merely a review of the one episode of the second RTD season, yet by the end he’s engaging in an analysis of the entire Rose Tyler era in counterpoint to what we see of the characters in School Reunion.

But why are women so worried about their looks?

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I took a lot of flak in a recent discussion elsewhere for suggesting that women who have cosmetic enhancement surgery might be responding to just a little bit more than their own psychological insecurities about attracting a mate – that there might actually be some much larger social issues about why women choose to be surgically enhanced i.e. that it’s not just about getting sex, even if the surgery they are having is aimed at increasing their sexual appeal (by certain widely acknowledged to be fucked up standards).

Here’s just one high-profile example of how women are trained from a very young age to believe that their looks matter more than anything else about them, not just when it comes to finding a sexual partner, but also in terms of recognition and reward in other aspects of life:

WWTTMD?

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What would Tiananmen Tank Man Do?

I don’t think he’d watch the Olympics. Of course I can’t know this, because we don’t know who he was, whether he is still alive, or whether he would actually be an enormous fan of the Olympics right now.

Still, I am not watching these Olympics, simply because I can’t square my conscience with supporting the regime’s propaganda exercise.

From the reading pile: Barrayar (contains spoilers)

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I’m enjoying “Barrayar” right now, from Lois McMaster Bujold, and I thought I’d share an excerpt. Bujold is a keen observer of human interactions, and readers with complicated medical problems might relate to some of this.

Commander Cordelia Naismith (also known as Lady Vorkosigan), a former Betan military commander, is in a doctor’s office on Barrayar. She is being checked out after a series of traumatic experiences.

Friday Hoyden*: Michelle Gomez

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Gomez is an actor I’ve enjoyed watching for some time, and when I read that she had chosen to play Katharine in a new RSC staging of The Taming of the Shrew I wondered why on earth she had agreed to be in that monstrously misogynist play, whose enduring popularity relies solely on the comedy fireworks in the early scenes between Petruchio and Kate, and the ability of the Kate to gloss over the humiliations she receives. I was disappointed by the idea that Gomez’s glorious abilities in physical comedy were going to be used simply to mask the horror of Katherine’s annihilation yet again. I should have had more faith.