Friday links!
Jul. 27th, 2012 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwrites1. A six year old guesses the plots of classic novels based on their covers. Well, classic Western literature. Favorite reinterpretation? The Great Gatsby.
2. Now your e-reader is reading you. A fairly scary prospect that makes me want to only ever read paper books and also invest in tinfoil and perhaps think about going off the grid with my paper books. The thing is? It's not that I consider how and what and the manner in which I read so secret and sacred. I'll gladly give that info out, I'll tell you all about it. It's just that I want to be asked up front about it.
What I don't trust about this is that these companies are going to do anything useful or even good for consumers and that they can be trusted at all to gather any data in this sneaky kind of manner.
Especially since it seems like they're willing to invest more in getting data like a kid trying to sneak a cookie from the jar rather than just, yanno, asking readers what they want and then fucking listening. I find the "well TV and movies have focus groups" statement disingenuous. Yes, they have focus groups, but the people in the focus groups know they're in the focus group and are aware that they're there specifically to be a data point for producers.
3. Brave from a trans man's point of view. I really like this reading of it, and it had occurred to me a few times during the film.
However, what bothers me (about movies in general, not this article) is that while we have films about women doing masculine things and wanting to be less "princess-y", we don't have a lot of films or movies about boys (or at least AMAB people) wanting to be less masculine and wanting to be very princess-y. Or about a princess who has been wrongly called a boy and a prince her whole life. Not to take away from this very good reading of it, it's just, well. I think it's not just about having more women but more types of women. There are plenty of women filled TV shows and movies. It's just they're all filled with white cis straight ladies.
4. In case your blood pressure needed to be raised (TW: blackface, dire racism and bigotry and white supremacy, and all around fail): Save the Pearls. It's just...yeah. It's as bad as you think and worse. And there's some very good commentary here about why even calling white people "pearls" while referring to PoC in the book as Coal, Tiger-Eye, Amber, etc is problematic as hell. Feel free to use Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook to register just how disgusted you are. Also, keep in mind the press is a vanity press and the awards are all bought.
5. I definitely want to pick up Salsa Nocturna the minute I get the chance. It's gotten praise from people I trust (like N.K. Jemisin) and I like what I'm hearing. So, quick book rec there.
2. Now your e-reader is reading you. A fairly scary prospect that makes me want to only ever read paper books and also invest in tinfoil and perhaps think about going off the grid with my paper books. The thing is? It's not that I consider how and what and the manner in which I read so secret and sacred. I'll gladly give that info out, I'll tell you all about it. It's just that I want to be asked up front about it.
What I don't trust about this is that these companies are going to do anything useful or even good for consumers and that they can be trusted at all to gather any data in this sneaky kind of manner.
Especially since it seems like they're willing to invest more in getting data like a kid trying to sneak a cookie from the jar rather than just, yanno, asking readers what they want and then fucking listening. I find the "well TV and movies have focus groups" statement disingenuous. Yes, they have focus groups, but the people in the focus groups know they're in the focus group and are aware that they're there specifically to be a data point for producers.
3. Brave from a trans man's point of view. I really like this reading of it, and it had occurred to me a few times during the film.
However, what bothers me (about movies in general, not this article) is that while we have films about women doing masculine things and wanting to be less "princess-y", we don't have a lot of films or movies about boys (or at least AMAB people) wanting to be less masculine and wanting to be very princess-y. Or about a princess who has been wrongly called a boy and a prince her whole life. Not to take away from this very good reading of it, it's just, well. I think it's not just about having more women but more types of women. There are plenty of women filled TV shows and movies. It's just they're all filled with white cis straight ladies.
4. In case your blood pressure needed to be raised (TW: blackface, dire racism and bigotry and white supremacy, and all around fail): Save the Pearls. It's just...yeah. It's as bad as you think and worse. And there's some very good commentary here about why even calling white people "pearls" while referring to PoC in the book as Coal, Tiger-Eye, Amber, etc is problematic as hell. Feel free to use Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook to register just how disgusted you are. Also, keep in mind the press is a vanity press and the awards are all bought.
5. I definitely want to pick up Salsa Nocturna the minute I get the chance. It's gotten praise from people I trust (like N.K. Jemisin) and I like what I'm hearing. So, quick book rec there.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-29 03:09 pm (UTC)3. Thank you for the link. I don’t normally read comments, but I couldn’t suppress my curiosity on this one. How folks responded actually makes sense to me – and it’s heartening to see, following the author’s follow-up post, how many went, “oh, wait – this is where my reflexive response came from, and now that it’s been acknowledged and explained, I can think about the topic with a clear head”. Nice example of a fruitful dialogue, there. (Necessary caveat: the author’s choice to explain his motives was not necessary, in my eyes – in the sense that he didn’t owe it to anybody.)
4. Holy racefail, Batman.