This was absolutely, positively my favorite dance of the season from SYTYCD last night, danced by Jason and Jeanine. I've been hoping Jason would be cut the last three weeks or so, but he redeemed himself with Jeanine. Who knew puppy-dog-face boy could be sexy?
The story was childhood friends about to hook up -- but she thinks they're not ready, hence the conflict. Hottt.
If you wanna skip the (uncaptioned) commentary at the beginning, the actual performance starts at 1:13. I could watch this over and over again. Siiigh.
Song: If it kills me by Jason Mraz, choreographed by SYTYCD alum Travis Wall.
So on Friday, the dumbtards over at Netflix decide to blog, defending their lameass refusal to provide equal access to captions for their streaming videos. (No apology, no acknowledgment of the customers they're denying, no nothing.)
I've blogged about my love/hate relationship with Netflix before -- on one hand, they've got all the indie movies and obscure foreign movies I want. Their weakling competitor, Blockbuster, offers similar services, but I've no desire to switch. (And no, THEY don't caption their OnDemand streaming vids, either. Damn. If they did... hello, mass exodus!)
On the other hand, not only does Netflix not even bother acknowledging that some people would like to, y'know, understand the freaking things they download, their former splinter production company, Red Envelope Entertainment, produced indies like Sherrybaby (with one of my crushes, Maggie Gyllenhaal -- sooo hot) doesn't caption even their movies -- even on DVD.
So, clearly, this isn't a company that cares that much. Only in recent days, with a twittest (twitter/protest -- ha! I keeel me!) spearheaded by people like @MarleeMatlin, have the people at Netflix bothered to even acknowledge that maybe, possibly, giving a shit about their own services might be a teeny tiny bit important.
And yes, vulgarity completely necessary. Netflix's weak response on their blog: Well, most people don't want captions on their movies, and it takes us forever to add a second stream, so we're working on something else. Give us, what, a year? Mmmkay?
My ass.
It took them this long to even acknowledge it. I first started e-mailing them about the lack of subtitles/captions three -- count them, three -- years ago and never once got a response, nor did anyone else I know who e-mailed them.
I'm not the only one this pissed at the company that feeds my movie fetish. Jamie Berke blogged today, noting the impatience of Netflix consumers online, both deaf and hearing.
If the deaf community is upset now, just wait until a year from now if
Netflix doesn't keep its announced commitment. Meanwhile, the issue is
actually broader than just Netflix! We need legislation to mandate
captions on the Internet. To promote THAT objective as well as the
Netflix objective and helping Hulu to expand their captioning, a
companion Facebook group has been set up with a discussion board: Internet Captioning.
Check it out... not only is she more calm and rational than I, there's good info on there.
Meanwhile, you bet your ass I'm gonna be sitting here fuming about my money funneling into Netflix's pockets while they continue to screw me over, telling me it's a cool thing that I'm paying for: something I can't watch.
L-word creators break their silence in this fascinating interview. I'm in love with these brains. Someday I'll join their club and... create something too.
Obsessed with this blog by Sara on the way your brain sorts out its info. I wonder if I'll ever be able to make sense of the world via ranges of dizziness, which is pretty much what I'm experiencing now.
The fact that this link will take you to Oprah's webpage is NOT a sign of my capitulation, I promise. Rather, it's a sign of how much I'm in love with Ayelet Waldman (aka Michael Chabon's writer wife). Her so-called controversy: that she puts her husband at the center of her life, not her children. I have a bone to pick with her about that, but hey, at least she shook things up, right?
If you don't already subscribe to Sharon Pajka-West's feed, go, run, click NOW. She always seems to have the in-info on new deaf books or deaf characters. Now, this posting she has up on Lance Allred's memoir is kinda irritating me. I've recently fallen out of love with the memoir in general, especially in the ways publishers market them. Look! Mormon! And raised a polygamist! Oh! And he's *gasp* deaf! And... wait for it... oh, no... he struggles with OCD. In essence, the memoir marketing game seems to be about how many "oh no, the poor thing" factors you can slap on a book jacket. Whatever happened to good, accessible, relatable writing!?
I'm hearing things -- well, not really hearing but... BWAHAHA I made a funny! -- about last night's House episode, which I missed.
I have no clue what the storyline is other than some deaf teen got a cochlear implant against his will courtesy of the very courteous Dr. House... I got bored three words into this recap, but the general gist of the things I'm hearing?
One, that the teenager who got implanted got it activated the very next day. Wow. Magic.
Then he was able to understand the things he was hearing within minutes. Fuck magical. This is miraculous. (Has anybody ever seen At First Sight? Val Kilmer, Mira Sorvino? Blind guy gets some procedure done to his eyes, but can't make hide nor hair of what he's seeing 'cause he's never seen before. Hello, logic!)
And I don't know how this comes about, and I don't really want to, but apparently later he gets upset and he rips the freaking thing out of his own head. Agh. Gory.
I'm not gonna comment on the ridiculousness of a show I've yet to see when my buddy Nabeel (a fellow cuer who's about to start his own CI journey) has already done it for me, other than that it'd be nice to hear about a deaf story in TV these days that doesn't have the CI at its' center, 'cause talking about CI's all day long? Hello, ennui.
I am gonna say, however, that I'm pretty freakin' happy I didn't think to watch it last night -- I usually watch it every week. Coincidence? I think not. My night was pretty dang blissful, thank you, without having a freakin' TV show piss me off, and that in itself was a gift from the gods. Hello, divine intervention!
First My Little Pony, then Strawberry Shortcake, and now Dora gets made over into this glammed out sexualized little icon... all in the interest of "appealing" to tweens?
I don't get it. I really don't get it. Sure, the
madeover versions look nice and all, but do we really need to all conform to the same idea of what is ideal?
Hummblemumblemurmur.
Oh, and it looks like the freakin' Care Bears are next.
As Callaway notes, "Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states
gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential
election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the
lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama."
Way to fight that stodgy uberconservative image, you silly red-staters. Here's a terrorist bump for y'all.
Super Bowl fans had their coverage interrupted by 30 seconds of porn from Club Jenna. Instead of post-touchdown celebration, they were treated to some wienie-swinging.
One of my commenters asked the other day: "What did you think of the PETA ad for the Superbowl that was rejected? I thought it kicked ass."
Well, yeah, it did kick ass. And a few other body parts as well. I saw it a week or so ago, and thought about posting it, but had mixed feelings about a commercial that promotes vegetarianism via female titillation and was clearly designed to be rejected and therefore garner publicity (which is why PETA makes the video readily available to the public).
Here it is, if you really wanna see (and um, slightly NSFW):
Anyway... it is sexy, and hot, yes. And man, does it ever put vegetables in a new light. And it doesn't take itself too seriously, which is kinda nice, considering that the women in the video are sexual placeholders.
So in terms of a spot that 1) gets your attention 2) sears itself into your memory 3) effectively promotes its message: veggies=sexy, it works.
But in terms of any real substance, I wasn't that crazy about it. There wasn't anything particularly new or exciting that we haven't seen already -- I'm still fuming over the GoDaddy spots of a few years ago. (BTW, did y'all hear about the lawsuit against Hooters? A group of men are suing for gender discrimination because they weren't hired as servers -- Bwahaha!)
But then again, if it's really designed for a Super Bowl slot, then it fits right at home with all the other masculine humor lite that we see during football games. So yay for PETA, I guess.
Unless you've been busy throwing your shoes at your favorite idiot, you've also been assaulted by these cheesy spots by Kay and Target and other merchandisers desperate to tug your heartstrings and ravage your wallet. Not a great time of the year to be a shiksa.
See, apparently the way to tug your heartstrings is to throw a deaf signer in there, show them in a few frames, cue some cheesy music, and wait for you to go, "awww... fuck world peace, I need a piece of that cuteness."
Observe:
and you can see another signer here, this time shilling for Target. In neither commercial does the signing have anything to do with the product or the marketer's promise.
Funnily enough, the Kay spot is drawing the ire of other bloggers... even bloggers who have no ostensible connection to the deaf community.
It can easily be read as either "We haven't been together long enough
for me to get good at ASL but I felt society's pressure to buy you an
insanely expensive gift" or "I'm a jerk and haven't put much effort
into this whole sign language thing, but you're hot, so here's a bauble
to keep you happy a bit longer."
Her response when he asks if she likes it: "Read my lips." Kiss. I
guess it's laudatory of Kay Jewelers to recognize hearing-deaf
relationships in the service of selling watches. So, why does it annoy
me so much?
Here's why:
Because Christmas is a time for goodwill and connection and buying cool stuff for people you like in hopes that the things they give you will be even cooler. And if your attempt at capitalizing on such goodwill is to plunk a deafie in front of a camera in a sloppy (albeit possibly well-intentioned) effort at inclusion while still speaking FOR them or TO them instead of letting them be their own person capable of their own actions, well, good luck.
Because, trust me on this one, a blank-faced kid standing cluelessly in the middle of a crowd of stage-hogging costumed thespians apathetically moving her hands around isn't a great symbol of aforementioned goodwill.
Nor is the new girlfriend who sits there and sweetly tells her FWB of the week that his inability to talk meaningfully with her "is fine." If there's anyone who's being accommodated in that commercial... guess what? It ain't her. *snort*
Hey. Think about it. She gets a booty call and jewelry out of the deal. He gets to think that learning to sign "Merry Christmas" means he's a good person and that he's fulfilled his Christmas do-good obligation. Who's lying to themselves here? *snort squared*
I'm not slamming the Kay or Target marketers here. Their job is to make money by taking advantage of cultural tropes already present in our society.
And the hearing samaritan trope has been around forever, no?
Yikes. You always hear about the aftermath of reality shows, but this hits a bit close to, er, home.
The Vardon family refinanced their home after the makeover, doubling their mortgage payments, and since they have one income, and not a great one at that, they're now facing foreclosure.
I'd say that was a dumb move, but I don't know that much about their reasons for refinance, so I'll just shut up and hope everything turns out okay for them.
