Imperialism Is the New Chic

I am all for movements which seek to resurrect the art of the past, but there is a difference between acquiring things for their aesthetic value while ignorant of their history, and creating a living history through art. And no, I don't think decorating your Williamsburg flat constitutes "art." The New York Times, however does, thanks to its glowing portrait of hipsters who have a fetish for turn of the century antiques.

Granted, one of the lads profiled in the article does participate in learning how his fetish objects of choice were created: “I like to cook, I like to sew, I can fix things with my hands.” However, the pinnacle of this it seems is finding satin with the right selvage.

I may be nitpicking, but is is probably because there there is also a classism that is not being addressed - though that is no surprise considering the article was published in the NYT's. Restoration and creation are two very different things, and often the former is far more expensive.

This expense is underscored by the articles quick turn to the shops a few of those profiled are opening in hip sections of the city with designers that the author can name drop. This seems to be the point of the blog that one of the sisters whom the article revolves around, since she likes to discuss what was worn to an outing at Yale:

Details on Porter's outfit: Amish leather suspenders from ebay, boys' shirt from Rugby, tie from J.Press (purchased minutes before at the original location at 262 York Street), Equi Comfort riding pants from Dover Saddlery, shoes and bag, Prada.

I'm so glad they let us know that it was purchased it from the original store. However, this seems to refute the NYT's chosen expert (from the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology) who believes this aesthetic comes from rebellion:

“Authenticity is such a fed-up idea...But collecting these old things, it’s like there is an aura attached to them. It’s not some prepackaged product being foisted on you by a big corporation.

Whew! Good thing they are keeping away from those big corporations like Rugby, J. Press and Prada.

Moreover, they seem to be completely devoid of any deep understanding of the culture they are co-opting. In speaking about one of the shops, the proprietor says:

“The idea was to make this clandestine Colonial tavern,” he said, “the sort of place the founding fathers would have conspired in.” The look, he added, reflects his assumptions about their tastes, as refined Europeans living in a rough new world: “Taxidermy was a symbol of that wildness.”

The founding fathers were sexist, classist, racist bastards. Just the sort of lot I do not want to emulate.

But this ahistoricism isn't surprising considering the article describes the apartment of two sisters as echoing "W. Somerset Maugham’s last days of colonialism, Victorian memento mori and the Edwardian men’s club." It also has "a taxidermy collection that would make Teddy Roosevelt proud."

So,we have the epitome of insecure masculinity which would set the tone for United States nationalism, time periods which relegated women to the private sphere and confined them in clothing that would lead to an early death (which explains the memento mori), and the last gasps of widespread institutionalized racism and exploitation. Lovely.

Also, not surprising is the NYT's is incorrect in asserting that wealthy young New Yorkers are setting this trend.

Crap, They Figured Out Our Evil Plan...

Yes, we want to kill the old people and the fetuses in order to cut health care costs and that pesky overpopulation problem:



It is crap like this that makes me afraid to start conversations with strangers in the airport for fear that my only reaction to a completely illogical argument based on scare tactics created by people who use others' religious beliefs to increase their own wealth and privilege, will be a sincere desire to punch someone in the mouth.

How Evil is Your Overpriced T-Shirt?

In my undergrad Intro to Women's Studies course, one assignment required us to write a manifesta based on Valerie Solanas' SCUM manifesto.*

The overarching theme of the course was popular culture, so my group wrote the "And Your Mom's a Bitch" Anti-Abercrombie manifesta. In it, we railed about how Abercrombie and Fitch was sexist, racist, classist, sizist, ablist...you get the general idea...and created stickers to sneak into fitting rooms that said things like "You are more beautiful without that," or something to that effect.

I hadn't heard of the brand until I got to college and was surrounded by people who's parents were in a higher tax bracket (or who aspired to be) than those I went to high school with. But all I had to do was see one non-catalog and witness employees in nothing but scarves, Uggs and their skivvies to know I would not be contributing to their profit-margin.

Now we find out that Abercombie banished one employee in their London store for violating their 45 page long "Look Policy." How did she violate it? With a prosthetic arm.

Fortunately, the former employee is finishing up her law degree.

But while it hasn't really been an issue not supporting A&F's ickiness, there is another clothing company which I equally abhor, but from which I own a number of t-shirts.

Granted, I have never bought anything at an American Apparel store, since I don't really need a lime green onesie. But, every single independent or socially conscious band prints their merchandise on the those oh-so-soft t-shirts and lots of independent designers do the same. So, in order to support them, I have to support Dov "Douchebag" Charney.

My list of grievances against all of this guys "alleged" ridiculousness is quite long, but here are a few highlights:

• Do we even need to bring up the ads? They aren't progressive, or edgy. They are creepy. And they will not be posted here.
  
  
• Dude has had multiple sexual harassment suits filed against him.
  
  
• They made "Legalize Gay" shirts to give to protesters against Prop 8 and have donated $17,000 worth of these shirts to different organizations, but none of the proceedes of the sales of these shirts go to help the fight for equality. That is not activism, that is advertising.
  
  
• "Sweatshop free" is a marketing ploy utilized to (successfully) kill the competition.
  
  
• Oh, but that wasn't the reason they have dropped their "sweatshop free" label. It was too "limiting" to their creepy corporate persona, "not that we're all of a sudden into sweatshops, but when we say it then everyone expects us to be a charity, and that we can't like maybe be a little bit porno and, like, something that's not politically correct." Glad we are clear on that.

Now, not only is he firing "ugly" employees, he is micro-managing it by requiring all stories to send in a group photo.


*Try to think of it as a historical document and not just, "you crazy, lady!" Though she might have been just a little of that, too.

Girls Rock!

This Stephanie kicks so much ass, she makes me like my name more:



Evidently Billie Joe asked a couple of other people who to try, but they didn't know the song. She was able to answer what key the song was in. My favorite part is that she starts sitting down, but kicks too much ass for that and stands up. Looks like Greenday has a back up guitarist if they ever need one.

This is the reason I donate to my local Rock Camp for Girls. You can find a listing of all the affiliated camps here.

This Sh!t is Bananas

My informal blogging at MotherJones.com is becoming far more frequent than I originally planned. But, they need more media and culture blogging with a side of snark so I am happy to oblige.


I am also happy to contribute to the site's feminist commentary, which brings us to my most recent post on the always lovely experience of being catcalled.

H/T to Amanda at The Sexist.

Joss Whedon is Going to Make Me Watch a Horror Movie

I've already told you that I think Joss Whedon is the most awesome writer/director around. If you don't know that already, watch this clip of him accepting an award from Equality Now and discussing why he writes strong female characters. Seriously, discussing misogyny while getting an award from Equality Now, from Meryl Streep. Awesome:



To be honest, I was a little concerned about Dollhouse for a while, but I should have known better. The message is a bit more subtle, but then you can't really hit viewers over the head with anti-patriarchy messages all the time or your shit gets canceled (See: Firefly).

But, it looks like JW is returning to camptastic awesomeness with a horror film due to come out in 2010 - and this is just one of the posters:


All three are pretty fantastic, but this one is perhaps the best horror movie poster ever created, which is why I will need to see this movie.

The problem is I don't like horror movies. For weeks after watching Shawn of the Dead I was sure my boyfriend was trying to eat my face off, every time he went in for a kiss. But I'm trusting that the amazingness of this movie will be worth all the heart palpitations that will follow. Besides, I'm pretty impressed at how damn creepy he made a single shot in the teaser trailer. Turn on your speakers and then go here.

The Military Industial Complex (Bye bye F22)

This week the first crack in the US military industrial complex was started. An overstatement? Maybe. Does it really mean we can start thinking smartly about how and why we have the largest armed forces in the world? Well, yeah lots of people are thinking smartly about it, just probably not Congress. Rachel Maddow gave a pretty awesome overview of what no longer building F22's means:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As a part of the generation raised on Top Gun, the idea that the F22 is obsolete (both in tactics and technology) is news. It seems the F22 is just as pointless as the volleyball scene:



But, back to business...something else in the Maddow report struck me: when we talk about outsourcing military projects, we aren't just talking about Blackwater and mercenary contractors, we are also talking about companies doing nothing less than holding US tax payers hostage by their (albeit smart) business practices.

It wasn't until I was doing research for my master's thesis that I knew the origin of the term "Military Industrial Complex" and the fact that it was coined by Eisenhower was mind-boggling. As was the realization that American jobs were not always tied up in the creation of weapons and the goods of war. Of course, the world has changed, but it is interesting to think what the dollars and hours spent on something as useless as the F22 could have produced.

If you haven't read or read the speech, here is the text.

Now I Have to See Harry Potter

I just keep solidifying my nerdiness.

My second post for The Riff, Mother Jones' media and culture blog, is up. In it I use the term Muggle, not once, but twice. But hey, people are being spurred to do more than buy Hogwarts branded stuff, so I thought they deserved a shout out.

Speaking of shout outs...Amanda at Pandagon has a really interesting post about why the books should have been turned into a TV series instead of movies. Maybe if they had, the ridiculously long quidditch scenes wouldn't annoy me so much.

Summer Blockbusters Kind of Suck

Let's review the summer blockbuster movies I have seen thus far in 2009:

...Warning: Spoiler Alert...
(They're all sequels!)

Terminator Salvation
Besides Christian Bale continuing his creepy, raspy Batman voice and that he seems to have an anger problem, the writers probably could have benefited from a Screenwriting 101 refresher course. Yes, it is science fiction and we need to suspend our disbelief, but come on now, you have just discovered a way to bring down the robots easily and with little chance of the few humans left on earth dying, but when one (that you have been torturing) escapes, instead of using the terminator version of a dog whistle you decide to pull out every helicopter and all the firepower you can muster to bring him down? That just seems dumb.

Also, in the future you can do a heart transplant in the middle of the desert? Yeah, that camo netting will act as a great barrier, and it's not like John Connor would be so wimpy he might reject an organ. Evidently this was an alternative ending that the production company decided to go with since the first one had robodude cutting off our hero's face and posing as him for the rest of eternity. Frankly, I would have been more willing to buy that, too bad other people had already thought of it.

One other thing: our hero who is destined to save all of humanity has a very pregnant wife throughout the entire movie. She even manages to find cute little skinny belts to wear above her belly to show it off. And yet, NOTHING HAPPENS. This is a movie about the end of the world with ridiculous plot points added in to make for more action and yet nothing happens to the lady that is eight months pregnant. Why then is she pregnant? So that we know our hero is virile, too? Probably. I mean he does kill that totally phallic robot to save her. I do have to concede though if anyone is going to do a heart transplant in the middle of the desert its pretty awesome that the one to do it is also eight months pregnant. For that I might forgive the ubiquitous end of the world tight leather get ups and perfect hair. Just don't get me started on the fake Governator.

Wolverine
Yay! Comic book origin story! Now those of us that like watching movies about comic books don't actually have to read them to figure out why Wolverine is so cranky and forgetful, whew!

Since this is an origin story, we have 2 hours of Logan becoming Wolverine, but you only have ONE moment where the hero becomes the superhero. No, not the scene of him in the pool of water surrounded by military officers and "scientists" in an underground lair (is this really the only way to do it?). No, the scene where the character explores and accepts their new abilities and decides to take them on to avenge/save people. Too bad this had to happen in the bathroom, because that lighting really did a number on that Adamantium. Psst! I think you for got a couple of layers of rendering!

Star Trek
Don't let the lack of colon fool you, if you were born before 1990 you know that this is a sequel. As movie blockbusters go, this one was pretty damn exciting - explosions, more explosions, well choreographed fight scenes, and lots of awesomely punny and campy humor. As for the rest, I couldn't have been disappointed because I wasn't expecting much. This is the James T. Kirk era of Star Trek after all, creepy womanizing is his bag. However, baby Kirk wasn't at all creepy, compared with that Uhura/Spock action. Not to mention I was waiting for Spock to go all Sylar and cut someones head off.

Still, that paled in comparison to why they decided to make Spock's mom a wrinkly Winona Ryder. Did they just want those of us at the tail-end of Generation X to feel old? And of course, there are the miniskirts. Okay, they wanted consistency with the swingin' 60's outfits from the original, but since you are playing with the entire time/space continuum I bet you could have come up with some reason as to why female members of Starfleet shouldn't have to freeze their asses off in space.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Michael Bay likes balls. 'Nough said.

* * * * *

So yeah, the summer blockbusters have left us a little high and dry, but really, when have they not? I'd say Pixar made good on Up but, it doesn't count as a blockbuster since it doesn't have explosions. I'm also still perturbed that we can never get a central female character (just pleeeease don't make it a princess), but it still made me bawl like a baby. Even that damn short that ran before it did me in.

If I haven't already solidified my dorkiness, I am pretty sure this is the first Harry Potter movie I haven't seen the day it opened - and not just because the ad folks continue to whittle away at Emma Watson's waistline. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to go see it, but I am a firm believer that Harry Potter movies should only come out in the fall. If a movie revolves around school, it should happen when school is in session. In the past, I have always eschewed the midnight showing for the one the next day after work, because then I get so see all the kids (not the fanboys) come out of the previous showing in their costumes. But, when the movies come out in the summer, all the kids have already gone during the day since they don't have to wait for school to get out, and wearing a Giffindor scarf and robes during July is pretty uncomfortable.

Of course I probably will be disappointed, but now that movie tickets are $10.50 I feel like I can only justify going to the movies to watch explosions, special effects and 3D, since your run of the mill romantic/drama/comedy is still just a romantic/drama/comedy no matter how big the screen is.

I've About Had Enough, Google.

Dear Google,

Oh, come on! I thought we had this all sorted out? I thought you were gonna be nice and not send me on any more wild goose chases and I wasn't gonna call you a poser anymore? I guess one of us was the bigger person, and it wasn't you, Google.

You know, I suspected I shouldn't trust you. There I was, getting ready to go to the north bay again, when I realized I couldn't quite remember how to get to my friend's lovely oasis in Healdsburg. I purposefully didn't use my computer, because I bet you have my IP address on some sort of black list, but you knew it was me didn't you?

You know how I know? Because I had gotten directions from you before to get to the very same place and they were correct. You made the trip so easy - and thank goodness, too, because it was raining cats and dogs that time and those highways up there are all under construction and the roads are all very narrow and windy, so I really could have gotten lost or worse, couldn't I? But you took care of me, Google. You made sure I had the right directions and the right mileage so I could anticipate when I would need to turn, even if it was after a bend in the road.

But not this time. No, this time you screwed up the names of the exit signs on purpose didn't you? Because we got off on Healdsburg Avenue like you told us to, and it didn't look at all like I remembered. We were in the middle of fields and vineyards instead of the center of the town like I remembered. Luckily, my husband had been paying attention to the freeway signs and knew that the next exit was Central Healdsburg. He wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, becuase he thought that is probably what you meant.

Yeah well I'm not buying it. See? Even on your fancy satellite view you can see that you actually point towards the Central Healdsburg exit, but you told us to take the one before it.


View Larger Map

When we got back on the freeway and took the Central Healdsburg exit, we could turn left on Mill Street just like you told us to.

I bet you'll say that we should have printed out the map and that would have helped, well even if we did, its only that giant map that doesn't do much good. And don't you even start to tell me I should have used turn by turn directions - that is just a waste of paper, Google! And I don't have one of those fancy smart phones so I couldn't just look at it as we drove, either. Even if I did, you know that cell phone reception sucks up there.

So, now that is three times you have really tried to mess me up, Google. Can we please broker a peace agreement? I mean you would feel really bad if one of these days I got really lost. And I don't want to have to threaten to switch to MapQuest.

Sincerely,
s.

The Austin Chronicles: The Language Barrier

As I've mentioned before, I was raised in California, a place with a temperate climate and non-invasive bugs. When I chose my college for undergrad, I had one requirement: it must not snow there. Obviously that limited my options, so when I applied to graduate school I thought I would expand my horizons.

When it came down to it, I had two places to choose from: Boston, Massachusetts or Austin, Texas. After my summer in Washingon, DC I thought I was ready to test my weather survival skills, but then I remembered that it wasn't just the weather that is different between the east and west coasts. There is also a language barrier.

Somehow I have managed not to be able to speak Spanish, despite three years of classes in school, growing up in a town that is almost 60% Latino, and parents who are fluent. However, while conjugating a sentence beyond giving basic directions or ordering tacos sends me into a brain-melting panic, I can understand quite a bit. The Spanish language (or perhaps more accurately in my home town, the Chicano dialect) is so ingrained in California culture that even if you are a gringa like me and can't physically can't trill an "rr", the basic rules of pronunciation are ingrained in you, since at one point in your life you will live in a city that begins with "San" or "Santa" (nod to imperialist history here), and enchiladas and tamales are considered comfort food.

As I was weighing my options (after living in San Francisco, neither snow nor heat sounded so great) I remembered what occurred shortly after I arrived in Washington, DC. And which is why I ultimately chose Austin.

After flying to DC, I spent my first night in the mid-Atlantic with my college roommate whose parents lived in Virgina. She was going to help me buy all the stuff that wouldn't fit in my two giant suitcases (like extra-long twin sheets and a pillow) and then drive me up to DC to settle into my dorm room.

The whole night she kept talking about how we were going to go this department store "Hecks" to buy things. It wasn't until we pulled into the parking lot the next day that I realized the department store was not named after a G-rated curse word, but after a family - Hecht's.

The night before we left, we had looked up directions to my dorm online, but they were a little odd so I called the dorm's front desk to double check. The directions were indeed a little off, so I wrote down the street names the receptionist gave me. Unfortunately, my California ear was not trained to German and Native American words and the way I thought they were spelled was not even close to their actual spelling. It took a couple of conversations with gas station attendants and folks on the street before we finally made it to the dorms.

With that (and the snow and tuition costs) in mind, I decided that going to a state with a similar demographic would be smarter because they would have the same pronunciation rules. For example:

• All double L's are pronounced like a Y (tor-tee-ya)
  
• If a letter has some kind of extra marking on it (like a tilde or accent) then it is a clue to the pronunciation of that word. They are also subtle hints: accents add flair which means that syllable is extra special. Tilde's are squiggly which means that isn't a boring old N but something with a little wiggle room (mon-yawn-a)
  

Okay sure, most non-Spanish speaking Californians will screw them up sometime, but I've only ever heard tortilla mispronounced by those poor souls who have never eaten an advocado. However, there are a few that are pretty basic rules that form the basis for pretty much every proper name or menu item in California:

• If there is an E at the end of a word it isn't silent, and is pronounced like a soft A (tamale)
• I sounds like E (fiesta)
• A is never pronounced harshly (like they do in Boston, or in flavor)
• If a word starts with a J then it is pronounced like an H. Again, there are clues. It is usually preceded by the ubiquitous San, Santa, La or El (San Jose or La Jolla)
• If G is followed by U is is pronounced like a W (Guadalajara)
  

It turns out I was very, very wrong. In Texas, the Spanish language has also gone the way of Mexican food - it has been bastardized.

To get to campus I took the (free!) shuttle that stopped just a block from my breakfast nook. While it was strange to get on a bus and not pay, or even have to show a student ID, it got even weirder when the automated voice began announcing stops. In the span of two minutes I heard the disembodied voice pronounce San Jacinto with a hard A and J and pronounce every letter in Guadalupe separately, except for the last E which they left off.

Weird. Maybe its like the disembodied voice in the San Francisco underground MUNI system that for some reason pronounces Embarcadero like Embarcadera, just a glitch in the programming. But, nope. Every single person in Austin says "I'll meet you on G-wad-a-loop" and "its the building on Sand-ja-sin-toe."

Flickr user, alycat

I quickly learned that I needed to pronounce these names the same way, or no one would know where the hell I was or where I was going, so I began saying "Okay, I'll see you on G-wad-a-loop."

A few weeks after I resigned myself to talking like a gringa, I was going to meet a friend at a bar. He called and said, "I'll meet you at nine. It's on the corner of 6th Street and Net-ches." At this point I had been in Austin a few weeks. I'd figured out that the 1 Loop was a freeway that was also called MoPac and didn't actually loop, that Martin Luther King Boulevard was strangely in a nice part of town, and that Koenig Lane was pronounced Cane-ig and turned into Allendale, Northland and eventually Ranch Road 2222 without warning. I had also been to 6th Street and to a street I was pretty sure a Texan would pronounce "Net-ches," so I decided it would be my first test to see how comfortable I was in the city. I didn't look at my Thomas Guide or Google maps.

Fifteen minutes later, I parked my car and was standing on the corner, but the bar was nowhere to be found. I called my friend:

Me: Its on 6th and Net-ches, right?

Friend: Yep, are you here?

Yeah, but I don't see it.

I'll come out and meet you....I don't see you. Where are you?

On the corner of 6th and Net-ches.

No, you aren't.

Okay, spell Net-ches for me.

N-E-C-H-E-S, what street are you on?

N-U-E-C-E-S.

In an almost perfect spanish accent he said, "Oh, you are on New-a-says. That is a different street."

Page Views Beat Anonymity

I'm published!

And everyone I work with thinks I read far more comic books than I actually do.

But yeah, go read about comic books, lip gloss, and Marvel's cluelessness.

Explosions! Testicles! Exploding Testicles!

Really, Michael Bay?

Really?

I mean we knew going in that Transformers: ROFL ROTF was going to be racist - though if you are going to call robots Mudflap and Skids shouldn't you employ the white trash Nascar stereotype instead of the illiterate, gold toothed, big-eared stereotype? Oh right, why would ignorance be consistent...especially since even the costuming wasn't - the main army dude couldn't seem to decide what parts of his uniform he wanted to wear from one second to the next. And don't tell me I should know the character's name. This is Michael Bay people. There are good robots, bad robots, military dudes, middle eastern (ahem, north African) villagers, frat boys, wacky parents, that hot overly tan chick and Shia LaBeouf.

Oh yeah, we also knew that it was going to be sexist. But that was a given, because only dudes like action films. And if we weren't quite sure, the previews made damn sure we knew - because obviously that is how you paint a motorcycle gas tank...duh! Don't you see the guys from Orange County Choppers doing that all the time? Oh sure, we finally had some female Autobots, but they were just pocket rockets. And of course they had to have female holograms so we knew they were girls, because again, duh, all robots are boys unless otherwise specified - and they also got blown up before they could have more than one line, since Mikey just didn't like them. But, the overly sexual girl Decepticon, that is a total rip-off of Species? She got lots of screen time.

But, lets get back to that all robots are boys thing for a minute shall we?

So there I was in the theater, fully aware that this was going to be the movie equivalent of a toasted marshmallow - oh so delicious, but of no real value, singed with some explosions - making snide comments to a friend who also enjoys robots and action movies and early 80's cultural references from a bit of a critical distance due to a social science undergrad degree - when we begin to gear up for THE BIG FIGHT. You know it's THE fight because it takes place somewhere that will let the CGI crew blow up historical monuments and all of the robots and humans are in the same general vicinity. More importantly, while everyone is hurrying to get their butts kicked or kick butt, the biggest robot of all shows up.

In my world of Transformers - the early 80's version of cartoons and toys - this robot was the coolest kind. It wasn't just one robot that transformed from a car/plane/machine but combined with other Transformers to make one giant one (obviously the toy I coveted). In this case, it was a bunch of construction equipment intent on sucking up the comic relief characters, but only succeeded in sucking up the "natives."

Oh, but just to prove the point that this isn't MY Transformers, as this giant robot climbs out of his construction pit from the bottom of the screen, Michael Bay decided to add a little something special to make sure we know that all robots are dudes and this is a dude movie.

I turned to my friend and said, "That robot has wrecking ball testicles."

Yes. Robot testicles. Wrecking ball robot testicles.

To prove the point, these Decepticon wrecking ball testicles become the target of the Air Force's giant secret weapon (whew, good thing you got that phallus in there!).

But really, Michael Bay? Have you ever heard about the perils of being heavy handed? Because, there are action movies that are about dudes, for dudes and are duderiffic that distance themselves from any lady viewers, but we can just roll our eyes and watch them, and then there are action movies that feel like a production company gave millions of dollars to a 12 year old boy in the height of hormonal spasm. Of course, they didn't. Instead they gave an adult millions of dollars and make me want to give you a swift kick to the testicles.

Particularly since this whole movie is about testicles. We have the Air Force blowing up Decepticon scrotum (ahem) - which is technically inaccurate since they are hanging freely. A human character tazers himself in the testicles. The same character lets us know that the uber-tan girl-character lands face down on his balls. Oh, and while not explicitly testicles, both dogs and dog sized robots hump things.

We get it! You are a dude, you like dude things, and being around dudes (but of course not in that way) and this is only for dudes.

But here is the thing: while Michael Bay spent millions of dollars to make a movie that every one agrees is awful, it seems that everyone involved with this movie wants to distance themslevs from it. Racism? That was Michael. Sexism? That was Michael. Giant robot testicles? That was Michael, again.

So here is my proposition. Stop letting Michael Bay make these movies!

Obviously Hollywood is attempting to squeeze as many $10.50 tickets and videogames and merchandising from my generation as possible, since according to my high school friends' updates on Facebook, not only can we buy it, but we should all have kids we can buy it for, too. Why else would every cartoon from our childhood be reissued as a line of toys or scripted into a blockbuster movie?

But here is the thing...we will see the movies and buy the crap anyway. You don't have to make all of our IQ's drop 40 points every time we see a movie in order to make obscene amounts of money. Any actress that you surround with robots and explosions will get YouTube hits. You don't have to spray-tan her within an inch of her life, or pretend that four inch heels and white pants are what you wear to save the world from giant alien robots.

Tone it down a bit, take into consideration that there are people without testicles who like this stuff, and even people with testicles that find Michael Bay ridiculous, and you will still make the number one movie in the world opening weekend. I promise.

Besides its not like you can sell a robot with wrecking ball testicles to kids, which makes your merchandising non-movie accurate, and that just disappoints the geek in us:


See? No testicles.