Art

‘Beasts of battle’ via Wikipedia

Via wikipedia: Beasts of battle:

The Beasts of battle is a poetic trope in Old English and Old Norse literature. It consists of the wolf, the raven, and the eagle, traditional animals accompanying the warriors to feast on the bodies of the slain. It occurs in eight Old English poems and in the Old Norse Poetic Edda.

The term originates with Francis Peabody Magoun, who first used it in 1955, although the combination of the three animals was first considered a theme by Maurice Bowra, in 1952.

The beasts of battle presumably date from an earlier, Germanic tradition; the animals are well known for eating carrion. A mythological connection may be presumed as well, though it is clear that at the time that the Old English manuscripts were produced, in a Christianized England, there was no connection between for instance the raven and Huginn and Muninn or the wolf and Geri and Freki. This mythological and/or religious connection survived for much longer in Scandinavia.

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Batgirl’s Equal Pay Public Service Announcement

How cool is this that the actors from the Batman TV show starred in a political public ad in the early 1960’s? You’d never see this today. In case you were wondering after watching the below video, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 did get passed, and has improved women’s salaries, but needs to be amended to achieve the true aims of the bill, because women are still paid on 77 cents on the dollar compared to men.

The EPA’s equal pay for equal work goals have not been completely achieved, as demonstrated by the BLS data and Congressional findings within the text of the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act. President Barack Obama said in March 2011 that he will continue to fight for the goals in the Paycheck Fairness Act.[4] The bill was reintroduced in both houses of Congress in April 2011.

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Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games

The first video from Anita Sarkeesian’s kickstarter project “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” is up and running, covering the “Damsel in Distress” trope.

You might remember that when Sarkeesian started this Kickstarter project, there was a huge surge of harassment directed at her for even starting the research, before she had even expressed her ideas on the subject [Slate article: Online Misogyny: Can’t Ignore It, Can’t Not Ignore It]

Sarkeesian’s story is a doozy, by the way. She started a Kickstarter page to raise money to make a documentary about the tropes used by video game designers to portray female characters. She hadn’t expressed an opinion about video games yet, but simply by stating that she would at some point in the future do so, she had to endure an absolute avalanche of misogynist abuse from men who hoped they could silence her before her too-scary-to-be-heard opinion could be voiced. Every access point they could exploit was used to try to get to her, especially her YouTube page. Her Wikipedia page was repeatedly vandalized with lies, links out to porn sites, and pornographic pictures.* Eventually, Wikipedia shut it down. Unfortunately for the misogynists, this sort of thing generated a lot of sympathy for Sarkeesian, and she was able to fundraise well beyond her original goals. Like, more than $90,000 beyond what she originally wanted to raise.

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Oceanographer Edith Widder: How we found the giant squid

Oceanographer Dr. Edith Widder talks about how she invented the camera rig designed to attract and film the giant squid recently filmed and shown in the Discover documentary.

Dr. Widder is the president, senior scientist and CEO of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association. And she is a total bad ass. A really cool example of women doing important and fun stuff.

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Jennifer Hudson – ‘I Can’t Let Go’ on Smash

I know it’s fashionable to hate on Smash recently, but you gotta at least admit that Jennifer Hudson KILLS this song. I’ve been playing this on repeat all week. Favorite line – “And when heartache comes a’calling, / I won’t even try to run / Cause it’s all that makes me know that I’m alive.” (Not exactly applicable in my life right now given that I’m happily married, but it still resonates.)

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Gender Through Comic Books Online Course

Very cool news from comic writer Mark Waid:

For the last few months, a talented university teacher named Christy Blanch has been putting together a college-level course called “Gender Through Comic Books”–but it’s not limited to college students. It’s the world’s first comics-related Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)–meaning that it will be FREELY AVAILABLE to ANYONE across the world who has web access and who’s interested in comics and in the creative process. There’s no obligation, NO COST, and all you have to do is take thirty seconds to enroll at the following site:

https://www.canvas.net/courses/gender-through-comic-books

This course is presented by (my alma mater) Ball State University on this very interesting Canvas Open Online Course platform that I’ve heard of several times before.

It’s about comic books, gender and women’s issues, writing. Boy is this up my alley. I signed up for it. If you’re interested in similar topics, you should too.

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Thought for the week

This particular tweet has stuck in my head all week long because I need to remember it when I’m considering other folks and things they do that I don’t understand.

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Sorry, Glee. We are never, ever ever getting back together

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Don’t worry; I have no illusions that anyone from Glee would actually see this. I just couldn’t resist the post title.

It seems perhaps the good folks from Glee have become alarmed (amused?) by the loss of lesbian viewers of their show due to their outright derision towards the “Lesbian Blogger Community“, and vowed that they would get them back. Because in season 4, episode 13, they make a full on play towards bringing the gay girls back into the fold by name-checking the afterellen blog, and using Naya Rivera as bait (by actually bringing her back to the show and giving her some lines and stuff).

Supposedly, this is all a set up for the upcoming Valentine’s Day episode in which Naya Rivera’s Santana Lopez makes out with Dianna Agron’s Quinn Fabray which is, I guess supposed to seal the deal on the “really we don’t hate lesbians, and no this isn’t a sweeps week lesbian kiss stunt like all those other shows, really” pass that Glee is making toward the homo girl community.

From what I’ve read, the Season 4 episode 13 show that just aired has a huge trans-phobic transgression in it and a “bad touch” sexual assault, but never mind those; the Afterellen blog is fully on board with the lesbian redemption of Glee, after being publicly acknowledged on the show.

Fortunately, the Autostraddle blog is like Afterellen’s saner older cousin ready step in and shut that down because she’s been around this particular block with you and others like you, Chris Brown.

As for me, my Glee hate-watching enjoyment these days has developed to the point of letting episodes pile up on the DVR and reading Riese Bernard’s scathing recaps on Autostraddle each week, which you should be doing too, regardless of whether you’re gay or not, because that is some funny shit.

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