In Which I Am Accused Of Hubris

Read a lot more reviews of Wonder Woman this morning, not because I wanted to, but because that does seem to be all that we’re allowed to be interested in for today, at least until some other bad thing happens. It never goes well for me for blog about the same thing two days in a row because by the second day no one cares any more, but in this case, it’s not my fault–the Internet just isn’t divulging any other subject. And also, still not going to talk about terrorism.

So a nice person left this little comment on my post from yesterday. And I thought I might as well answer it, patiently and without malice, because obviously xer is very upset about everything, and probably needs tea and a cupcake. Here’s the comment:

“Finally, here is one of the few movies that features and stars a female character and was directed by a woman and it deals with issues of women’s power, but you have the hubris to denigrate it. Glad patriarchy isn’t raining on your parade or ruining your life, apparently. You haven’t even seen it and aren’t planning to. Hmmmmm…. aren’t you looking foolish now that it’s opening weekend has smashed box office records. Then even more annoying than your snotty attitude is that you spend most of the article talking about yourself and patting yourself on the back for being a better wonder woman than anything Hollywood can create. And, worst of all is that you use that hideous transgender ideology in your title by saying you aren’t going to “self identify” as a wonder woman. Thanks for identifying yourself as SJW who centers men and men’s feelings in her feminism and can piss just like a man on other women’s accomplishments. Handmaiden.”

Let’s go from the middle out, shall we.
“Even more annoying than your snotty attitude is that you spend most of the article talking about yourself and patting yourself on the back for being a better Wonder Woman than anything that Hollywood can create.”
I readily admit to having a snotty attitude. It’s kind of my schtick. I like to get on the Internet and complain. That’s what the internet is for. Also, this is a blog. Blogging is, in its essence, narcissistic. I spend almost every day talking about myself. Perhaps you would like to get a blog and talk about yourself. Lots of people do. They get a little blogspot or a wordpress and just start flinging pictures and feelings at the internet. Some of them are quite good and interesting. Because, inspite of the narcissism, writing and reading about life and ideas and the passage of time is one way that human people connect with each other.

And yes, I am sorry, I do think ordinary people living their ordinary boring lives is Always More Interesting than anything Hollywood creates, even if the boring life is mine. Hollywood is occasionally interesting, but the occasions are fewer than even they would like to admit. I much prefer the quiet ways that people work and live and think to having to sit in a cold dark theater eating plastic popcorn with the sound several thousand decimals too loud watching a much too larger than life supermodel in some kind of metal unitard bashing her way around the First World War. Just trying to peer at my neighbors through the hedge is vastly more interesting and important than a fictional cartoon representation of Wonder Woman. First because the movie is not real, and second because it’s not real. It might be fun, but it’s not real and it doesn’t need to teach me about how men and women relate to each other and how women overcome the patriarchy. If I wanted to overcome the patriarchy, if indeed it exists in all the forms everyone insists it does, I would look to people–writers and thinkers–and not to a cartoon character in a skin tight metal unitard. But that’s just me. And again this is my blog, which for reasons unknown, you chose to read and took precious time out of your day to comment on.

Let’s see, let’s go here next.
“Finally, here is one of the few movies that features and stars a female character and was directed by a woman and it deals with issues of women’s power, but you have the hubris to denigrate it.”
Teehee. Every Movie Today stars a strong female character. Every single blessed one. And I’m sick of it. I am sick and tired of being told how beautiful and special and strong and wonderful and brave all women are just for being women. This is why I’ve largely dropped the word ‘feminist’ from my vocabulary. It’s not about having to do things to be an interesting, intelligent, thinking, coherent person any more. It’s just about Not Being Oppressed. But guess what. I am not oppressed. Literally no one is oppressing me. And the women who are being oppressed, they do not seem to be of very much interested to “the feminism of today.” Oppression does exist, but it doesn’t exist everywhere. And not all men are oppressors. The lay of the land is lots more subtle than that. Hollywood shoving the Empowered Woman meme down my throat is boring and tired and old and boring.

“…aren’t you looking foolish now that it’s opening weekend has smashed box office records”
No, I’m not embarrassed because I wasn’t reviewing the movie. Read the post. I was using words to express fatigue about the very idea of Wonder Woman at all and how the empowered women meme of today comes at a cost. The idea that you can Do Anything is not free. Counting the cost of that idea is a good and right thing to do. Sometimes it is nice, in life, just to think about an idea and write about it. You don’t have to see all the movies to understand something as bleak and annoying as modern gender relations.

“And, worst of all is that you use that hideous transgender ideology in your title by saying you aren’t going to “self identify” as a wonder woman. Thanks for identifying yourself as SJW who centers men and men’s feelings in her feminism and can piss just like a man on other women’s accomplishments.”
I’m not following you here. Yes, I am appropriating the invented word ‘self identify’ and using it to make fun of the very idea itself. It’s a ridiculous idea. I am not an SJW. I am not a feminist, not in the way people use it now. I think men and women should both be allowed to be human. There’s no word for that any more. Also, I’m not ‘pissing’ on anyone or anything. That a vulgar and hideous expression. At the most I have ever ‘visited the telephone’ but even that is more than I like to say.

It seems like you maybe don’t know very many men. Very very very few men any more are foolish enough to even nod in the direction of a woman because they know very well that all women are empowered and that they are not important at all. I do agree with you, though. Transgenderism is the pits. Men pretending to be women is awful. A man winning the woman of the year award does say something about how unbalanced and confused humanity is. But I don’t think it’s because of the patriarchy. I think it’s because men understand that if they want to be empowered and accepted it’s more likely to happen if they “are” women. But that’s just a hypothesis. I think there could be many different reasons for this sudden proliferation of everyone trying to be someone different than they biologically are.

And finally, I think you forgot the hashtag before “handmaiden“. It’s not quite as punchy if you leave the hashtag off.

I hope you have a really lovely day. There is a man who empowers women. He does it by saving them from their sins, by dying to forgive the incredible debt they owe God. He does it by rising from the dead to destroy their worse enemy, death itself. He does it by interceding every day on their behalf in love. His name is Jesus and if you look to him instead of yourself or Wonder Woman or feminism or any other human solution he will bind you to himself for eternity. He is the perfect man, very God, light from light, he holds the universe together in himself. You don’t have to be strong and mighty because he is and he withholds nothing of himself from those who call on him. #prayingforyou