I talked about a bill Sen. Anderson was working on in the MN Senate. I sat in on a committee where it was heard, and think the bill is worth mentioning again. Sen. Anderson brought in American and European (Spanish, British, and French) magazines all advertising products that appear in our magazines and theirs. The point she was making was that it is possible to produce the same products under the standards of E.U. regulations that are nonexistent within the F.D.A.
This digital story came from YouTube. The title of the story is "Trafficking of Women and Children." I viewed this in another course, and found the piece to be highly effective. There are clips throughout that offer statistics as to the frequency and devastation of human trafficking. The images are not always consistent. Sometimes it is difficult to grasp the meaning of a particular image, though the creator said the majority of the images came from childtrafficking.com Because there is no voice over, the song is a good choice. The haunting melody enhances the message. I would also note that because the message is clear to the reader via the statistics, the images to make sense contextually. I still find a few images to be random, such as the drawing about a fifth of the way in, but overall, it is a very moving and effective digital story.
I watched a documentary the other day in The History of the Body. We watched “Southern Comfort,� centering on a FTM man during his final year with terminal ovarian cancer.
The film raises a lot of gender issues, and a lot of social stigma issues. Robert, the main focus in the film, passes very easily…so easily that he is invited to a KKK meeting by men he meets in a bar.
Robert’s girlfriend, Lola is a very different person. Lola identifies as Lola; yet, when she works, she works as John, the persona she was before she came out. I believe this was because she hasn’t come out to her clients yet, and it was just easier to avoid that conversation for the time being.
At any rate, I think that the documentary says a lot about what it is to create media in a queer subculture. It is important to look at who the filmmaker is, what their slant may be. It is also important to look at what tidbits the filmmaker includes.
I am interning for Sen. Moua this semester. I interviewed, and accidentally ran into Sen. Anderson’s legislative assistant, with whom I was concurrently setting up an interview. Long story short, I did both interviews in one visit. Long self-analysis short, I don’t know how to say “no.� I blame it on the fact that my class was the only year to be denied D.A.R.E. when I was in elementary school. Or wait, I think I read somewhere that dare has an adverse affect… Hmm…
Anyway, I digress. I agreed to the first internship. The internship with Senator Anderson involved more research than legislative experience, which is more of what I am looking for. However, her research is really interesting. I agreed to work in part, during low times, on that as well.
Alright. So, my boyfriend called me a cunt a few weeks back. I’ve never been able to reclaim the word for my own personal, empowering use. I feel like this contention deserves a discussion, and what better place to state my own opinion, than on my own, personal, feminist blog.