The Kids Are All Right

Once again, my movie review is going to contain spoilers, so if you have not seen the film and don't want anything revealed ahead of time, read no more! I just will always put this kind of disclaimer up because one time I went to a friend's house while he was watching Fight Club, walked in around the time of the big Tyler Durden plot twist, and he knowingly let me ruin the entire movie before I got to watch it from the beginning.

Last night I saw director Lisa Cholodenko's newest film, The Kids Are All Right. Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening) are a lesbian couple living in Southern California with their two children, Laser and Joni. Fifteen year old Laser decides he wants to contact the sperm donor responsible for bringing him and his sister into the world. Legally, eighteen year old Joni has to make the contact with donor Paul. Paul is a smooth-talking 30-something organic farmer/restaurateur whose hyper-masculine persona and irresponsible behavior first gains the love and admiration of the family, then their disgust and anger.

Rather than to regurgitate the plot here further, I want to talk about the way the movie addresses sexuality. I do not want to overstep my bounds here, after all, Cholodenko is, herself, a lesbian, and thus I trust that as the director she portrayed the lives of Jules and Nic in a way that was similar to her own experiences. After all, Cholodenko herself had a child with her life partner through an anonymous sperm donor. That being said, I was mostly pleased with the way sexuality and gender were portrayed in The Kids Are All Right.

To begin, I liked that this was a film that did not fall into the typical trap of needing to characterize the lesbian couple as a copy of a male and female couple. I wouldn't say there was a butch or a femme role assumed by either Nic or Jules, which was refreshing to see, as I feel that lesbians are often portrayed as one hyper-masculine and one hyper-feminine partner. Sure, there was masculine and feminine performativity carried out by both characters, you can't strip away the fact that gender is inherent, or at least deeply associated with many different traits. According to US or Western social standards, Nic's short pixie haircut and no-nonsense attitude may be seen as a more masculine performance, while her sensitivity and maternal protectiveness is typically associated more with femininity. I don't try to fall into these generalizations, of course men can be family-oriented and women cut their hair short all of the time. But there are gendered associations with behaviors and appearances in every culture, and I doubt you can argue that the associations I just laid down there don't ring true, at least in the US. Thankfully, the film doesn't portray these characteristics and behaviors as dichotomous.

I also like the way that sexuality was interpreted as a more fluid and complicated matter than simply hetero or homo. Nic and Jules get their kicks in the bedroom while watching all male porn. In fact, Jules goes quite in depth about the fluidity and convolutedness of sexuality when Laser asks why she and Nic watch "gay man porn." Definitely a funny part of the movie as the hippie-esque Jules tries to be honestly explicit when explaining herself to her fifteen year old.

Jules does not turn out to follow an explicitly homosexual path as well, when she eventually comes to cheat on Nic with sperm donor Paul. I think this is where those who identify as strictly heterosexual or homosexual (i.e. 0 and 6 on the Kinsey scale) might have problems. I might be assuming here, but I have a feeling that many people thought, or even whispered to a fellow movie-goer "but I thought she was gay," at the onset of Jules and Paul's affair. And indeed, when Paul proposes that he and Jules move their relationship to an even more serious level after their affair is discovered by Nic, Jules says into the phone "I'm gay," maybe even further confusing many audience members. But I think this was a realistic exhibition of human sexuality, especially under the conditions that the family and Jules was under. Namely, Joni is an emotional 18-year old preparing to leave for college, Nic is stressed out about Paul's arrival and is downing more wine than ever, Laser is experimenting with drugs and hanging out with a sociopath, and Jules is trying to start a business and productive working lifestyle for the third time. Paul comes along and becomes Jules' first customer at her new upstart landscape design business, and this galvanizes the whole sexual escapade.

Although I delved into the sexuality of the film, The Kids Are All Right is a movie that really tackles family, growing up, infidelity and other issues that many mainstream or heterocentric films cover, but it shows how these same issues are present in nontraditional (in typical Western culture) family structures. Any of the problems that come up are neither further exacerbated nor smoothed over by the fact that Jules and Nic are in a homosexual relationship, and I think that is such a good step in a society where many still think that shows like the L-Word are the Last Word (heh) in lesbian relationship representation.

WTF OK?

Wow, it looks as though 2010 is the year of eliminating states from my list of possible new homes in the US. Oklahoma's new abortion legislation (HB 2656 and HB 2780) is up there on the f-ed up scale with SB 1070 in Arizona. And I have not heard as much about this new legislation, maybe because everyone is distracted trying to bring awareness to Arizona's new law. Vetoes to both bills were overruled, meaning that HB 2656 and HB 2780 are now laws in Oklahoma. How does this all happen so fast?

Let us begin with HB 2780, which makes it so that a woman having an abortion is required by state law to see an ultrasound of the unborn fetus before the abortion, and have it described to her in detail. So she knows what she's getting into, you see... This is supposedly going to deter women from using abortion as a first-resort method of birth control. While I do believe that having an abortion is a serious matter requiring careful consideration of the consequences and what exactly all of this means, I must admit that I cannot see that too many women getting abortions are going about it all willy-nilly. This is an intense medical procedure, and I am sure that a lot of hard thinking goes into the decision for such a serious procedure. Currently, pro-choice advocates are relating this procedure to state-mandated rape, because these women have no choice whether or not they will be penetrated by the instruments used to produce an image of the fetus. Of course, nay sayers are poo-pahing the whole thing. According to one representative, you use similarly (or more) invasive techniques in order to perform an abortion, so it falls under the same umbrella. Oh wait, except the whole definition of rape revolves around consent, (meaning that there is a lack thereof in cases of rape), and in all of these cases the abortion procedure itself would have been requested by the woman, but not the ultrasound.

Moving on to HB 2656. According to this new Oklahoma legislation, doctors can outright lie to a patient about the state of her unborn fetus. Why would s/he do that? In order to prevent the woman from aborting a fetus if it shows signs of birth defects. To quote Mary Alice Carr in the above-posted article, this is "anti-motherhood and anti-medicine." You should definitely read her article, because she puts my outrage better than I ever could, speaking as a mother who was always relieved to hear that everything is fine with her unborn fetus in the doctor's office. Now, a doctor in Oklahoma stating "everything is fine" may not bring this relief, as they are allowed to violate their Hippocratic oath if they think that telling you there is a problem with your fetus will lead you to seek an abortion.

Frankly, I am a little confused with the conservative push for so much controlling legislation lately. If you buy into the liberal-conservative dichotomy as it is popularly illustrated, you will see that conservative=fights for freedom (and small government), and liberal=fights for equality. Talking to my family about the healthcare bill you would definitely get the impression that our freedom in this country has gone out the window. Yet the biggest violations of freedoms that I am witnessing are being posited by the conservative representatives. Do you like freedom? Well in Arizona you're going to have to sacrifice just a little bit of that and carry documentation of legal citizenship around with you, no matter who you are. That is so that no one else can enjoy the freedom that you earned(?) by being born in this great nation. Do you want an abortion? Well not so fast now. We didn't make it ILLEGAL, so you still have your freedom there. But we will make it an even more uncomfortable process. Oh, and there might be even more medical woes for you in the process, but no biggie, right? I mean that affects so few people, that it shouldn't even matter. Hey, 50% of us don't even have to worry about pregnancy, so there's some more freedom! FREEEEEEDOM!

Well, Oklahoma, you can now join North Dakota and Arizona on the list of states I won't be visiting or frequenting any time soon. To inhabitants of those states, keep fighting the good fight. Show the world that freedom and equality are not mutually exclusive.

"Too Posh to Push"

Before I let too much time come between now and this year's Ohio Latinamericanist Conference, I wanted to write a little about it.

By far my favorite presentation was Jill's presentation during the "Empowering Women through Change" panel (avec moi) entitled "The Rising Rate of Cesarean Birth in Brazil." I never thought I would be interested in any discourse about pregnancy or birth, but I became fascinated. The presentation was so informative and inspiring in fact, that I offered to present the information in my Women's Studies capstone class this week, as it is relevant to the topic we are covering right now which is "Maternal and Permeable Bodies." (That presentation never came to fruition, but I was totally willing!) Because I don't have any of the information in front of me, I will not explore this topic in as much depth as Jill did. I will simply touch upon the main points I remember. Some of the reflective points will be my own, but most of the information I am paraphrasing from Jill's research. She's the brains of this operation.

I want to make a disclaimer here: I am not demonizing or blaming women who do have C-Sections. This procedure exists for a reason, and I know several women in my own life who have had to deliver in this fashion. I want to explore here how c-sections are resorted to for reasons that have nothing to do with preserving the health of the mother and child.

C-section rates are rising in many places all over the world, but in Brazil the figures are unprecedented. Here you can see the rates represented all over the globe, up to 80% in private clinics in Brazil. Already, Jill's audience was engaged and gasping at the statistics.


So why are women going through a more invasive procedure during childbirth, electing to be cut open and have a higher risk of infant mortality and secondary infection in the mother? Granted, there are legitimate reasons that lead to cesarean section births. But the line of necessity often begins to blur, especially in a country where 80% of private clinic births are c-section births.

1. Pregnancy as Sickness- Pregnancy is often seen as a malady, and not associated with a very normal and natural part of the life of many women. Thus, removing a fetus like a cancer, that is with scalpel and sponge, may seem like a natural medical procedure.

2. Doctor/Patient Disconnect- Doctors are often guilty of thinking that their patients do not understand the medical procedure or terminology they are using. This is not necessarily a myth, as many people clearly are not familiar with complex medical terminology. However, this is an opportunity for the doctor to explain his or her way through the procedure and complexities, rather than just leave the patient in the dark because they “couldn’t possibly understand.”

3. The Marvels of Modern Medicine- We still live in a world of positivism. Science seems to trump all knowledge, and anything involving modern technology is said to "revolutionize" just about everything. Juxtapose shiny, sterile medical instruments with a woman grunting and pushing a being through the holiest of holy orifices, and we can start to get a picture of how the modern way is seen to be more medical, scientific and modern. An audience member shared that when she had her child through vaginal birth in the US, her friend had recently given birth in Chile via C-section. When said audience member admitted to delivering "traditionally," her friend replied, "like an Indian?" This shows that vaginal birth is even racialized.

4. Too Posh to Push- Victoria Beckham had a C-section, so did Angelina Jolie, Christina Aguilera and Claudia Schiffer. It is more expensive and thus it is a kind of status symbol. Classism is thus at play along with racism. (Update: At least Kourtney Kardashian did it this way!)

5. The Virgin and the Whore- Straight up, in layman’s terms, women want a tight vagina. Or rather, men want women to have a tight vagina. Vaginal birth clearly messes with this. But you can stay good and tight for your man. Your sacrifice is an incision just below the bikini line (which can often be small or later corrected with plastic surgery).

6. Health Insurance- Of course we cannot talk about any problems in the world of medicine without revealing the seedy underbelly that is health insurance. Jill shared that in Appalachia women who have one c-section are required to give birth through c-section every time after that in order to have it covered by health insurance.

I could go on forever, but I will stop there and I hope I have convinced you of some of the underlying reasons that many women go under the knife unnecessarily during childbirth.

Blog numero uno

Oh dear, it appears as though I have started a blog. And why would I want to do that? Well, I will tell you right now, friend. As I approach the end of my penultimate quarter at Ohio University, I realize that although graduate school for me has been a stress-filled adventure, I thrive on academic discussions. My interests include, but are not limited to:
1. Feminism and Gender studies (study of gender within the media, studies of femininities and masculinities, the study of women and the environment)
2. Race studies
3. Latin America in general -> Mexico more specifically, and Venezuela on occasion.-> Tijuana/San Diego most specifically. Haiti has also always fascinated me from what I have learned from Randall Robinson and Franz Fanon
4. Environmental Studies- my knowledge of this is more on the political and/or educational side than the scientific side of, say, climate change.
5. Literature (although my formal education seems to be getting in the way of my pleasure reading)
6. Foreign Languages (Spanish and Portuguese)
7....and along with foriegn languages, travel
8. Teaching (something I never thought I would find such an interest in, but now as a Spanish teacher, it's a pretty big part of my life)
9. Film- I love movies. Especially the films of Vincent Gallo, Werner Herzog, Wes Anderson, Harmony Korrine, Lars von Trier, and Alejandro González Iñárritu to name the tip top.

Those are my interests right off the top of my head thinking about classes I've taken, research I've participated in, literature I've read, and things, places and people with which/whom I have come into contact. Of course my discussions on this blog will not be limited to such materials.
Right now might not be the best time to begin such an endeavor, as it will probably distract me from the real tasks at hand in my life, which are:

1. Assignments for my capstone course for the Women's and Gender Studies certificate
2. My thesis on Women and Environmental Advocacy on the US-Mexico Border
3. Lesson planning and teaching Spanish 112- the second in a series of 3 beginning Spanish classes.
4. Figuring out what life will be for me after I graduate with my Master's Degree in Latin American Studies (will I move to San Diego or am I doomed to stay in cold and snowy Ohio, working at Columbus State?)
5. Research assistance-ship hours with my academic advisor/Chair for my thesis committee, Risa Whitson.
6. Planning my presentations for A.) the International Student Union Research Symposium and B.) the Ohio Latinamericanist Conference.

As I finish up my Master's Degree I will probably be blogging sporadically and mostly about content pertaining to my classes and my thesis. As I mentioned previously, I am starting this blog so that I can continue to engage in meaningful and thoughtful "conversation" about my interests and passions. I encourage readers to post comments so that a dialogue can grow from my comments and questions. I welcome your ideas, comments, suggestions and questions. Thanks for reading!