Subluminal

Perceptions about women seems to have changed fast in the last few years. Of course I don’t mean perception of women in their essence, but the expression of their experience. This experience seems to surface, with movements such as #metoo, but also works of art which that replace the male gaze with the female gaze. On this topic, I really enjoyed this piece in the Guardian  by Gwendolyn Smith :”Like a natural woman: how the female gaze is finally bringing real life to the screen” (the piece is about the movie by Celine Sciamma “Portrait of a lady on fire.”)

It is worth noting that the main actress in Sciamma’s Movie, Adele Haenel, has an acute vision of the many things that go wrong in French society (“Adèle Haenel: France ‘Missed the Boat’ on #MeToo“, New-York Times), and left abruptly the French equivalent of the Oscars when Roman Polanski, a movie director who has been accused many times of sexual assault (and inexplicably gets a pass from the French movie society – like Harvey Weinstein did for years.) The movie “Portrait of a lady on fire” reminded me in some ways Luca Guadagnino’s “Call me by your name,” where both movie describe a new way at looking at a lover, which is less predatory, less transactional than most man-women relationship as depicted in movies (or even same-sex transports when filmed by a male director, such as in “Blue is the warmest color.”)

The female gaze also expands further, in TV series such as the celebrated “Fleabag,” or in music, with artists such as Angel Olsen, Sharon van Etten, Jenny Hval on Mitski. They bring a different view than the one that sprung up in the late 90s, with Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple.

There’s still a long way to go, but the soft power is finally getting steam, thanks to the courage of some and the efforts of many.

(I also very much enjoy reading “This Week in Partriachy” by Arwa Mahdawi and various pieces by Jia Tolentino, on Millenial feminism, which seems to bring intersectionality into the spotlight.)

While France is not very open about bisexuality (a friend of mine told me all the pains she went through in Paris), it is happenstance that I realized that few of the books I read recently had been written by bisexual authors: André Gide, Marguerite Yourcenar, Susan Sontag and Emily Dickinson.

 

 

It’s unclear who else in the early parts of the twentieth century where part of that invisibile society, but the description of Hugo von Hofmannsthal by Stefen Zweig or “Les cloches” from Apollinaire hint at something which cannot be said (Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann…)

You’re still a young man/woman.

It’s not too late to learn how to unwind.

Who said

you have to take it on the chin?

Let me have your abyss.

I’ll cushion it with sleep.

You’ll thank me for giving you

four paws to fall on.

Sell me your soul.

There are no other takers.

There is no other devil anymore.

Wisława Szymborska – Advertisement

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Wow, the year is off to a good start!

• Trump’s corruption of democracy in plain sight will be unfettered – Richard Wolffe
• Brexit is complete, goodbye UK – Ian McEwan
• Fires in Australia (interactive)
• Travel ban expanded to other countries : Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Sudan
• Coronavirus & xenophobia – Coronavirus: US bars foreigners who recently visited China ,  State Department tells citizens ‘do not travel’ to China

We’ve been there… Interesting that two Unions (United States, United Kingdom), who went through the Chicago School trainwreck (Reagan, Thatcher) decided at the same time (votes Trump, Brexit) to get away from institutions born from WWII (NATO, EU.) We’d better engage, if we don’t want to get back to the World of Yesterday…

The endless train of academics were also called upon to contribute to the nation’s growing number of periodicals. In 1937, The New Republic, arguing that “at no time since the rise of political democracy have its tenets been so seriously challenged as they are today,” ran a series on “The Future of Democracy,” featuring pieces by the likes of Bertrand Russell and John Dewey. “Do you think that political democracy is now on the wane?” the editors asked each writer. The series’ lead contributor, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, took issue with the question, as philosophers, thankfully, do. “I call this kind of question ‘meteorological,’ ” he grumbled. “It is like asking, ‘Do you think that it is going to rain today? Had I better take my umbrella?’ ” The trouble, Croce explained, is that political problems are not external forces beyond our control; they are forces within our control. “We need solely to make up our own minds and to act.”

Don’t ask whether you need an umbrella. Go outside and stop the rain.
– Jill Lepore (New-Yorker 01/27/2020)

Thank god there’s the Superbowl and J.Lo to remind us of a time where things where good… sort of.