More racism in your misogyny?

When I originally started drafting this post, my topic was the skinny on skinny or why do you still have too much fat on your body? Faithful readers of DJ! have read my screeds on that topic here, here and here.

So. There's a young actress in a blockbuster film that has become the target of the slash-and-burn media.

NY Times critic Manohla Dargis calls her "a new female warrior" [...] then in the next sentence says that she doesn't look hungry enough and that her "womanly figure makes a bad fit for a dystopian fantasy about a people starved into submission." [...]

This is beyond disgusting. Lawrence looks normal. Her male co-stars look even healthier (and have some seriously big muscles) yet no one thinks they are too healthy or big boned or big boobed or just plain old fat. Look at her. She's not fat. She's even thin and she is also totally normal about her food intake. She likes to eat and won't diet. Power to her.

Sometimes I think that we are so used to seeing such skinny women in the movies that when we see a normal looking girl we think she is big.

"... when we see a normal looking girl we think she is big." Yeah, about that normal-looking thing ...

A blogger at Jezebel goes to town on this product, the latest installment in the never-ending creation of new markets for self-loathing - a business model that requires self-loathing to ensure the consumer target is receptive to its newest crap.

Needless to say, certain citizens are troubled by this product—which, in addition to just being fucking insane, brings up painful issues about the hierarchy of skin tone within the Indian community. As if it isn't bad enough that darker-skinned people are encouraged to stay out of the sun and invest in skin-bleaching products like 'Fair & Lovely', and that white actresses are being imported to play Indian people in Bollywood movies, now everyone has to be insecure about the fact that their vaginas happen to be the color that vaginas are??? Splendid! God, I was just saying the other day that my misogyny didn't have enough racism in it.

The meticulous parsing of the advert was a tad absurd, though the purpose of the product is too sadly evident. Bleach your punany, cos it has to be lily-white, virginal and pure!

Yes. The Georgia O'Keefe plate, from The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago, 1979.

Canada and Stieg Larsson

According to this.

[...] friends of Larsson's have come forward with details about what they say is a partially complete fourth book by Larsson. Larsson pal Kurdo Baksi is reported to have told Swedish newspaper Expressen that the fourth novel is set on the Banks Island in Canada – an intriguingly remote spot said to be home to more musk-ox than people – and features heroine Lisbeth Salander's twin sister Camilla. [...] Last summer John-Henri Holmberg, another friend of Larsson's, also told the press about the setting of the fourth book in northern Canada – something he said Larsson discussed with him by e-mail.

As our readers have noted, DAMMIT JANET! admires Lisbeth Salander's kick-ass response to gynophobia.

The title to the first Millenium novel is *Men Who Hate Women* - that was kept in most versions tranlated from the original Swedish, except in the anglophone publishing world where it was deemed to be not marketable, hence *The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo*.

Stieg Larsson was an investigative journalist, dedicated to sniffing out the pungent spoor of conservative, right-wing, fundamentalist religious and racist political organizations in Sweden.

While many progressive bloggers try to expose odious Contempt machinations, many professional journalists are hamstrung by media organizations owned or controlled by corporations, who protect the corporate interests of other corporations such as Barrick Gold by blocking investigative writing and not publishing facts that might contradict a well-crafted public relations image.

For a maple-flavoured and timely discussion about white feather journalism & corporate-controlled news reporting, listen to the Reverend Paperboy's podcast this evening.