representation

Set those DVRs, because Miss Representation airs tonight on OWN at 9/8 central! The film, which explores the representations of women in the media and politics, is a must-watch for anyone who consumes media or cares about women (read: everyone). Check out the extended trailer for a sneak peek:

Miss Representation 8 min. Trailer 8/23/11 from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

Stay tuned to Bitch Radio too, because tomorrow's podcast will include our thoughts on the film!

Not that I would expect post-modern, transnational feminist film work to come out of the slimy "it's not misogyny/racism, it's ironic!" Vice-magazine's video site, VBS.tv, but the thirty-minute documentary "Prostitutes of God," on devadasi sex workers in India, is dangerously western-centric, anti-sex work, and completely misrepresents the sex workers it focuses on.

Only there's a twist to this one-sided voyeurism--the film subjects are taking the filmmakers to task for misrepresenting their lives. Enraged about the compromised representation of their gods, their work, and their lives, the sex workers made a response video.

"Swim 2" from "16 Portraits" by Chris Rush Professor Ann M. Fox and Jessica Cooley have now curated two art shows addressing disability. The first, Re/Formations featured five women artists exploring the intersections of female identity and disability through sculpture. More recently, they wrapped up STARING, which was based off of the book Staring: How We Look by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, one of the leading scholars in disability studies. The works in STARING address issues of representation, visibility, and empowerment....not unlike feminism. It featured artwork from Doug Auld and Chris Rush, among others. Transcript available for download

The recent Uganda death penalty bill for homosexuality has raised awareness of the inhumane treatment of LGBT people globally. The repercussions of rape, jail, and murder for expressing your sexuality are horrendous, but they sometimes make it easy to cast a blind eye to the way so-called first-world countries continue to foster homophobia, transphobia, and sexism. Gay women seeking asylum in the UK know all too well that homophobia does not stop at the border.

Through a new art project with Artangel, an organization that sponsors interactive art projects, some of these woman are able to express the dehumanizing and difficult process of gaining asylum.

One of the things that drives me just a little bit up the wall about disability in pop culture is when creators want to have a disabled character, but don't want that character to have any of the actual consequences of being disabled. This plays out in one of two ways: Either the disability is just there, without any of the attending difficulties, or the disability has been turned into a Super Power. Sometimes, we get both.

I've never seen wheelchair-using Professor X have to actually deal with stairs. He uses his psychic powers to make his wheelchair float.