class

Let's talk about Bounce. Specifically, let's talk about the "Sheets or Bar" campaign, the only ad series I've seen lately that can compete with the obnoxiousness of Virgin Mobile's stalker humor.

Another week, another bunch of thought-provoking articles. Here's some of what we've been reading:

• ColorLines celebrates the U.S.' first integrated all-female band.
• Also at ColorLines, Kai Wright reflects movingly on the still-far-off mountaintop MLK described.
• Jessica Valenti talks about the glorification of basic fathering in The Daily.
• Ms. and NPR each report and discuss Joe Biden's address of sexual assault in schools; what did YOU think?
• Bitch contributor Sady Doyle manages to write smartly (while being, as she puts it, "not-just-totally-mean") about Phyllis Schlafly's influence at Global Comment.
• Bitch Flicks lends their feminist snark to an analysis of Total Film's so-called "40 Greatest Movie Posters" list.
• Futrelle unpacks comic artist Scott Adams' recent douchery—and his bizarre attempts to fix the situation—at Feministe and man boobz.
• Bitch contributor s.e. smith blogs at this ain't livin' about the ageist implications of a younger Miss Marple.
• Vulture goes over the vitriol around Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark and actor Harry Lennix's piece asking why only Julie Taymor is trashed for a show many hands put together.
• In the same vein, 90s Woman looks at the pop phenomenon "Friday" and wonders "WTF is so scary about an ambitious thirteen-year-old girl?" (via feministified)
• Chloe at Feministing speaks out about last week's Slutwalk and the victim-blaming such events protest.
• Greenier at RH Reality Check talks about "Why Insurance Coverage for Abortion Matters;" the piece was then picked up for AlterNet.
• Bad news: Canadian blog Gender Focus is shutting down. At least we'll have Jarrah's upcoming board game projects to follow!
• Liz at Our Turn comments on documentaries about masculinity.
• At Racialicious and Muslimah Media Watch, Diana shares her feelings on the CNN special Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door.
• On HuffPo, Payne explores how derogatory language feeds classism.
• Miss the queer teen drama South of Nowhere? Heaven knows I do! AfterEllen interviews star Mandy Musgrave about playing lesbians and her new webseries, Cowgirl Up.
• In the <3 files: "Family Dog Keeps Missing Baby Alive Overnight," from Jezebel.

Your turn to share!

When considering this series' central question about Oprah: Why does she get under so many people's skin? It comes down to the narrative.

Meanwhile, in the land of blogdom...

• Tiger Beatdown's Garland Grey reports from SXSW!
• On Salon, Bitch contributor Page McBee talks about not fitting into the gender binary.
• At Racialicious and Bold as Love, Rob Fields explores the limited film-buzz surrounding I Will Follow.
• Ms. and AlterNet look at how budget cuts could affect HIV-positive women.
• Matt Kailey talks about the class dynamics of clothing on Womanist Musings.
• At Trans/plant/portation, Bitch contributor EvMaroon discusses redefining terrorism.
• Helen at Questioning Transphobia reports on some bad reporting regarding the supposed average lifespan of trans* people.
• RH Reality Check continues to keep us up-to-date about anti-choice politicians with a profile on Republican maybe-candidate Chris Christie. In the humor category, Colbert has something to say about all this maybe-running business.
• Still furious about the New York Times' awful coverage of the gang rape in Texas? So are we, and so are the folks at Bitch Flicks, who talk about rape culture, the media, and the defensive chorus of "You just want to be offended!" (via Gender Focus)
• The Drop the I-Word video campaign continues at ColorLines with "I Am... Undocumented."
• Jos at Feministing shares and discusses the LGBT documentary "Always My Son."
• If you're in the San Francisco area, be sure to attend next week's Girl Talk, A Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue, co-curated by Gina de Vries, Elena Rose and Julia Serano!

Notes on Alain Berliner's 1997 Ma vie en rose, which remains one of the few fictional films about transgendered children.

A discussion of 2009's Toe to Toe, writer-director Emily Abt's full-length feature debut about two teenage lacrosse players who develop an interesting relationship despite differing racial and class backgrounds.

Today's entry is the first in the series to focus on the work of a female director. In the coming weeks, we'll discuss contributions from filmmakers like Jane Campion, Catherine Breillat, Deepa Mehta, Rachel Raimist, G.B. Jones, Lynne Ramsay, Julie Dash, and Courtney Hunt, among others. But Argentinian writer-director Lucrecia Martel more than deserves her place in that list of auspicious talent, as she demonstrates with 2008's haunting La mujer sin cabeza.

It was oddly apropos to be mulling over the idea of social bubbles over bubble tea. Totally unplanned, though (as was the choking on a tapioca pearl). A friend and I were discussing the need to stop accepting online culture as the status quo. It's exclusive and exclusionary, with its own language, its own jargon and touchstones and for all of its ubiquity, the culture of the internet isn't universal*, not even amongst our generation. My brother-in-law doesn't have a Facebook account, my former coworkers had no idea what LinkedIn was, people who aren't using it don't give a flying...fig about Twitter and on and on. But if you're immersed in internet culture, it seems like the norm. Everyone blogs! Or comments on message boards. Or knows what a lolcat is, etc. It's not the norm, though. It's a bubble. And given that the topic recently came up again in an online (har, har, har) discussion wherein the majority sided in favor of the supportive power of surrounding oneself with like-minded folks for the sake of encouragement and motivation, I thought I should finally get around to digging out my hatpin and getting to work on breaking down (bursting if you're the punny sort) the idea of the bubble.


Photo by rksura (Pentax Man)

While studying the Civil Rights Movement during college, somewhere along the way I heard about a young woman who, as one prof put it, "sat before Rosa Parks sat." However, this nameless woman was ultimately deemed "unfit" to serve as the test case to trigger the Montgomery boycott, which would precipitate the Movement. Why was she considered unfit? Well, as the story went, the young woman (actually a 15-year-old girl) became pregnant by an older, married man, and so the more reputable Rosa Parks took center stage. Read on to find out more about Claudette Colvin's "forgotten contribution."

Extensions off to Jaime Pressly, one of the funniest women on TV. Her Emmy award-winning portrayal of Joy Turner on My Name Is Earl is so solid that it’s easy to forget she’s a bonafide sexpot (with credits like Playboy spreads, countless "sexiest women" list mentions, and the lead in Poison Ivy: The New Seduction on her resume). Of course, Pressly’s hotness isn’t anything out of the ordinary: she has blonde hair, blue eyes, big boobs and a button nose. Yawn, right? But it’s Pressly’s self-awareness that allows her to take her conventional looks to cartoonish heights as Joy. And therein lies the comic genius.