This is a guest post from Tobes! Damn, I miss her being in the blogosphere on the regular. But it’s Tobes! Yay!

I understand there is much to be critical of in the HBO series “True Blood” (Shakesville did an excellent take down last year) but I have remained a loyal viewer because I have found the characters laugh-out-loud funny, touching and in general it’s just fun “bad” entertainment. Nothing wrong with watching criminally good-looking people engage in soap opera storylines involving minimal clothing, right? Mostly I watch the shows because I have enjoyed the books and you almost “have” to watch so you can find what you LOVE and what they TOTALLY destroyed (ie: What the hell is up with this fairy storyline??!) However, I’d be lying if I said I was a fan of everything on this show and last night’s episode proved to be a REAL low point for the show.

The three-episode arc of season 4 has featured a main character, Jason, tied up and tortured by a former girlfriend, Crystal. Last night’s episode concluded with Crystal giving him Viagra (she conned him saying it was medicine since he was in pain). Later Jason wakes up to find her raping him (in the hopes he will impregnate her so she can carry on her mythical shifter bloodline). If that isn’t horrible enough, there is a line of other women waiting to take their turn and be impregnated. Jason is beaten, bloody and crying out for help. It is VERY, VERY disturbing.

I feel like a scene this bad warrants an extra ‘warning’ before the episode begins. There were notifications about “Violence,” “Adult content” and “Strong Language” but what about graphic gang rape? I watched Season 1 of Camelot on Starz and one episode featuring the rape of the Queen featured a warning about “Rape” before the show began.

And if this all isn’t enough to turn your stomach… HBO calls this brutal depiction deserved! The HBO facebook for True Blood” posted an episode recap video with a screenshot of Crystal and Jason and the description is this: “Jason gets comeuppance as he learns what it’s like to be objectified” – Jason’s character in the books and the show is known as a hound – he sleeps with many, many women (consensually!) and makes no lasting commitments to any of them. However, torture and a violent gang rape is in no way “comeuppance” for ANYTHING! Much less promiscuous sexual activity!

HBO has always seemed to be a ‘smarter’ network- tackling difficult issues in their shows and documentaries… how can they be SO in the dark ages with this victim blaming attitude? I have written a couple of things on the TRUE BLOOD Facebook page asking for an apology and I encourage others to do the same.

I am prepared to accept that a TV show like “True Blood” will be graphic and showcase sexualized violence. But I am not prepared to accept it as some sort of “he got what was coming to him” joke. I guess I always assumed that I was supposed to be disgusted by scenes like that—not view them as some sort of ‘due punishment’ for a character.

You all know I love a good fight scene, and really the best place for those is Kung Fu movies.

So Boyfriend and I watched the Ip Man movies on Netflix about the guy who would eventually teach Bruce Lee. They are seriously dude heavy and don’t pass the Bechdel test (this is not true of all Kung Fu movies, btw) but I liked them anyways.

Aside from the awesome fight porn (so freaking pretty!) there is a whole fuck load of Chinese propaganda in these films. Which I’m down with. It’s like watching Doctor Who and seeing the Brits be all “of course aliens would land in Great Brittan first! We’re number 1!!!” The first Ip Man movie is set during WWII when parts of China were occupied by Japan, and it’s up to our hero to (reluctantly)hand the Japanese a can o’ whup ass. The second movie is set in Hong Kong, and Ip Man must show the lousy occupying “white devils” that they are not so tough. I found myself humming the Rocky theme song through the 2nd movie. Now if only they’d make a 3rd movie where Master Ip teaches Bruce Lee so that he will become a stealth weapon against American Imperialism……

Also, it is interesting to watch the Chinese stereotyping of the Japanese and the Brits. Like there’s some serious race issues there, but I am hesitant to call it straight up racism because both the Japanese and the Brits were occupying forces which makes it problematic in the whole ____ism = privilege + power equation. In these 2 specific situations, the Chinese were not the ones wielding power.

But you don’t have to think to deeply on that (if you wish) to just enjoy an old fashioned, good man literally fights the evil bad system and wins movie. Plus FIGHT PORN!

Bonus, while the movies are not Bechdel-y, the guy who plays Ip Man, Donnie Yen, first learned martial arts from his mom. Way to go mom!

So last night at the European offices of Elizabitch Worldwide Industries we watched the June 30th Daily Show. Jon Stewart discussed the Supreme Court’s ruling against restricting the sale of violent video games to kids, accompanied by two hideously graphic clips of attacks by men on a woman. Then he skipped on to the choke-hold attack of Wisconsin Supreme Court judge David Prosser on his colleague Ann Bradley during a heated debate.

Men attacking women. Two simulated but with horrifying violence, one real and occurring in justices’ chambers of all places. It leapt off the tee vee at me. I wondered if Jon were going to riff on that.

No such luck. Jon was appalled by the heave-inducing violence of the video game, and astonished by the assault in chambers (and the partisan selective memory of the justices who were witnesses), but the one-way M->F direction of the violence? Left without comment.

Now I don’t blame Jon. He’s doing his job, which is to entertain the Rockefeller-Republicans-in-jorts who pass for liberals these days and who watch his show in droves. Anything with a whiff of feminism is a big downer to this crowd. Bringing up violence against women, even with his trademark feigned outrage, would sound like a lecture to some and hit too close to home for others. They’d squirm and roll their eyes, which kills the glow of superiority that is part of the magic of the show.

Jon did offer a powerful if oblique comment before the commercial break. “It seems your reality doesn’t inform your politics, your politics informs your reality.”

I’d say Jon said a mouthful there.

So sayeth President Regan Obama.

I don’t even know what to say to the folks who still believe Obama is playing some kind of 11 dimension chess and that contrary to EVERYTHING he has said publicly, he got some secret lefty agenda. He doesn’t. He’s all so not stupid. He doesn’t give a fuck about us, the average person just trying to find enough work to pay for the little things like food and shelter and maybe if we’re really lucky- dental work. He thinks that when push comes to shove, those on the left-ish side will still vote for him because the alternative is supposedly worse.

And the Senate ain’t much better. If they had the will, there are things they could do to limit Republifuckers’ assholery. But they don’t have the will. It’s not in their best interests.

We, at the bottom 80% (okay,, we can even expand it to bottom 90%) will be the ones sharing the sacrifice. We are the ones who have to “eat our peas” except they aren’t our peas. We have to eat the peas of the rich asshole who ate the entire chicken off the table, without sharing any. (Rich assholes make the worst dinner guests as well as the worst human beings, true fact).

All this eat your peas/ sacrifice bullshit makes me think of whatever children’s story where the shitty little prince misbehaves, so his slave child takes the whippings for him. Shitty little princes.

Fuckers.

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There is a letter being sent to him to give him some fucking idea of why women might be annoyed/fearful/upset/etc about being harassed in an elevator by a stranger, with a long (and growing) list of signers who have all been victims of rape. It’s triggery. Super fucking triggery.

I haven’t decided if I’ll sign it or not. I work really hard at keeping assholes out of my head space and meat space and blog space. I don’t know that I am up for the argument should they find their way back here. But the people who have put their names to it are immensely brave.

These recent additions to the Elizabitch lexicon are sure to expand the range of your rage. Note that two-thirds involve embroidering the F-bomb. Isn’t English grand?

• Violet Socks coined auto-mindfuck to describe taking a distraction as a threat and vice versa.

• Oakland Sister Circle brings us macktivist, a hip, politically-involved young man who exerts a divisive effect on activist communities with his noxious douchebaggery. The Macktivist seems closely related to the Hipster.
• Twisty Faster at I Blame the Patriarchy captures the dudely definition of the function of women as fuck-toilet. If it doesn’t sound romantic, it’s not meant to be.

I’m gonna go get my crafty on and recover 2 office chairs with a cool, modernist duvet cover I picked up at goodwill for 8 bucks (which means 6 yards of fabric for about 1.66 a yard- sweet).

But I need some kick-ass sing along tunes to accompany my cutting, sewing, staple-gunning (Thank you kind reader who got me tools. You make reupholstery possible). So here’s some Sleater Kinney.

(I use the phrase “You’re no rock and roll fun” WAY more often than i should admit to.)

at least when it comes to declaring war on Libya and ignoring human rights.

But when it comes to the debt ceiling, not so much.

Fucker.

More evidence that YOU don’t understand 12 dimensional chess

Count me among the big-stupid heads who don’t understand politics.

It’s also Harry Potter weekend. Harry Potter is the reason Kid decided to learn to read. We’ve seen all the movies and Kid has a MAJOR crush on Luna Lovegood. I respect the Kid’s taste.

Though I am all about Matt Lewis, the guy that plays Neville Longbottom (doesn’t he look like Clive Owen’s younger brother? DAMN.)