stag party

T&S choices for the festive season – Trouble and Strife

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It’s the season for round-ups of the year’s cultural highlights, however rather of offering you our views on the books and movies everybody was speaking about in 2015, we have actually chosen to recommend some you may have missed out on. To put it simply, here are a few of the important things we have actually taken pleasure in, and believe our readers will too. Not all our suggestions are from this year, however they’re relatively current and all readily available, and in our viewpoint they’re all soaking up and captivating. So, put some feminism into your joyful season with the T&S cumulative’s Christmas list.

Books worth reading:

Liz Kelly:

My suggestions for vacation reading are 2 books composed by pals and one which opened brand-new vistas of sci-fi/fantasy. All of them are readily available on Kindle and as a genuine book

Hotel Arcadia, Sunny Singh

Promoted as a thriller, and with a variety of radiant evaluations, this is an unique composed by among my coworkers. Embed in a high-end hotel which goes through a terrorist attack the text moves in between 2 main characters who challenge gender stereotypes. Sam, a courageous, yet traumatised, war professional photographer, is a lady who appears to in control of her life, who has her own principles and ethical compass. Ahbi, the hotel supervisor and a closeted gay male, angsts about having actually stopped working to measure up to his military dad’s hopes and expectations.

The terrorists and the past are the backgrounds versus which the Sam and Ahbi get in a discussion with each other and themselves, although they never ever really fulfill. The severe context produces a circumstance in which they muse on the individual in the political, the worldwide for the person. The main area is taught, tense– I discovered myself holding my breath and needed to continue reading as the composing stimulated this little hazardous area.

Golddigger, Hilary McCollum

Composed by a very long time buddy and extreme feminist, Golddigger remains in the custom of lesbian historic fiction. The book traces the early life of Frances Moriarty as she leaves the terrible ty of starvation struck Ireland for the guarantee of the United States. The scenes in Ireland have lots of the taken minutes of a very first and prohibited love, the pleasure and wonder when females fall for each other, the easy enjoyment of an appearance, a touch which very first electrical kiss. Disaster strikes and the composing relies on loss and sorrow, as Frances needs to deal with the obstacle and experience alone. Unsurprisingly she chooses to impersonate a guy and whilst in New york city chooses to sign up with the legions taking a trip to California to make their fortune in the gold rush. You need to check out the book to discover if she makes it. Eventually this story is a mission, by a bad however identified lady for a life unconstrained by faith, custom and womanly conformity, of caring and living versus the grain.

Lagoon, Nnedi Okarafor

The plot line comes right out of B motion picture sci-fi– aliens arrive at earth and are not impressed by what they discover. What makes this various is that it is embeded in Lagos, that made me understand just how much of the scifi and dream I check out takes the West as its design template. More than this how the aliens are understood, and the unpredictability of whether they may be saviours or autocrats, uses more than a late night motion picture. This paired with the machinations of numerous groupings to utilize the aliens for their own programs– a stopping working ill president, a corrupt pastor, the enthusiastic military male, and a street gang– produce a complex and sometimes disorderly plot. What I most taken pleasure in, nevertheless, were the encounters with Nigerian folklore and the chapters which were composed from the viewpoint of a swordfish, a huge spider and even an area of roadway. Speculative fiction at its finest, and part of the brand-new category of Afrofuturism.

Debbie Cameron:

Dietland, Sarai Walker

Sarai Walker’s Dietland takes the upbeat, anarchic political spirit of the early Women’s Freedom Motion and instills it into an unique with a modern setting and pop-culture perceptiveness. Embed in contemporary New york city City, it’s the story of Plum Kettle, a separated and at first rather downtrodden lady whose task is addressing the anguished letters readers send out to the editor of a teen women’ publication. Plum’s own issue is that she’s fat in a world where fat females are disliked: she’s waiting and conserving for the bariatric surgical treatment that she believes will alter her life.

However then she stumbles into a parallel world. An anti-beauty market activist who has actually penetrated the publication where she works leads her to Verena, a benefactor who acquired a fortune from her mom’s slendering company (the Dietland of the title), and is utilizing what she considers the profits of the devil’s work to do the work of feminism rather. She makes Plum a deal: she’ll spend for the surgical treatment if Plum still wishes to have it after a duration of living in Verena’s all-female common home.

On The Other Hand, there’s a subplot about a shadowy company calling itself ‘Jennifer’ (the name has actually been picked since it’s so generic, the most popular women’ name of the 1980s). Jennifer is basically a terrorist group, and its targets are males who have actually committed violence versus females. It abducts them and either eliminates them or utilizes them as utilize to make feminist needs (such as the elimination of degrading pictures of females from public sale).

I will not expose how all of it comes out, however the factor I believe it’s a fantastic extreme feminist read is not, in any case, the plot. It’s the mix of what you may call political satire and dream. Walker is both incisive and uncompromising in her review of the misogyny of modern ‘post-feminist’ societies. There is practically no element of the contempt, violence and hatred females undergo– by commercialism, by their own internalized self-loathing, and above all by males– that isn’t discussed at some time in the book. Yet it does not become a horrorfest or a one-note tirade; initially, since the satire is typically amusing along with infuriating, and 2nd, since of the dream component. The ‘Jennifer’ subplot has females rising and turning the tables on their oppressors: we may not authorize of their techniques in reality, however in fiction this vengeance is sweet.

In a manner Dietland is a (feminist) book of concepts, however it’s not likely to be referred to as such, since it isn’t a ‘tough’ or unattainable book, and it’s not focused on readers who like their writing self-consciously literary. Some customers have actually been a bit sniffy about it because of that; a couple of have actually presumed regarding compare it to chick-lit. Some readers plainly made that presumption too, to evaluate from their online remarks revealing frustration that the at first considerate Plum ended up so ‘unlikeable’.

I’m more in arrangement with the customer who explained Dietland as ‘a thrilling, incendiary manifesto camouflaged as a beach checked out’. And what you can delight in on a beach, you can similarly delight in throughout the unavoidable longueurs of the joyful season, or utilize to lighten the gloom of a British January. Think about it as a feminist option to signing up with the health club and going on a detox diet plan.

Movies worth seeing

Joan Scanlon:

My suggestions start with 2 movies that are more about enjoyment than politics, the very first an elegiac movie about females and wine-making, and the 2nd a romantic funny with a twist.

Les Cabotines: le vin au feminin

Les Cabotines: le vin au feminin (easily equated as: Red wine, Women & & Buddies, which is the English title of the movie) was produced and directed by Fiona Cunningham-Reid. It is the story of Carole Leblanc and Jo Béfort, who began their white wine experience 8 years back in Collias, France. Their dream was to produce exceptional white wine. They had no experience, no expert assistance, simply their enthusiasm for white wine– and the assistance of their pals. This fascinating movie follows their wine-making experience and carefully explores their relationships with the town and each other. This is not a lesbian separatist neighborhood; vice versa. Secret to the success of their combination in the town is their outright decision to make the very best possible white wine, and vice versa. The villager from whom they employ their cellar is completely authorizing of the quality of their white wine, which far surpasses that of the previous resident. When inquired about their sexuality, he states: “It was spoken about, however there’s no issue.” Their sexuality is neither here nor there, however an exceptional unremarkability however in the context of town life.

The movie was evaluated at Channel 4 on 23rd January 2013 at the launch of Stonewall’s female fan effort, followed by a red wine tasting of Carole & & Jo’s newest vintage. Long remaining shots of the Pays du Gard landscape, Jo mucking out a red wine press, Carole lyricizing about the quality of the grapes, warm nights consuming outdoors with amounts of pals commemorating (and consuming) the fruits of their labour. The movie is not coy about the physically strenuous work associated with wine-making, however in spite of this, I question there were lots of lesbians in the audience (materially affected by a glass or 2 of the extremely great Les Dames d’Epicure), who didn’t think about evacuating store and relocating to Languedoc-Roussillon. A current evaluation in G3 publication (mainly extremely favorable to be reasonable), however argues that: ‘the documentary is at times practically sickly sweet and picturesque beyond belief’, and I can’t assist questioning if this isn’t a cautioning to the readers of G3, Queen et al, that this movie isn’t about power, risk and sex– it’s simply a movie about enjoyment.

To purchase or download the movie: or you can merely purchase a copy of the DVD from Amazon (under the English title). Unfortunately, their white wine is not readily available in the UK, however it would rarely be a difficulty to go to the vineyard and purchase it on your own:

Margarita

Margarita– a movie by Dominique Cardona & & Laurie Colbert– was evaluated on the closing night of the London Lesbian & & Gay movie celebration, 24th March 2013. Seemingly a lesbian romance, here, as in Les Cabotines, sexuality is not the problem. Margarita, a young Mexican baby-sitter, has actually been living and operating in Canada unlawfully for the previous 6 years. She is utilized by Gail and Ben, a cash-strapped power couple (remarkably acted by Patrick McKenna and Gail Lautier), who ignore her reliance on them– and theirs on her: she does whatever in your home, from cleansing and cooking to constructing upkeep (there’s an uproarious scene where she looks like a type of superwoman with a tool belt strapped to her prepared for any do it yourself job).

When the couple choose they need to make economies, Margarita’s small income is on their hit list, although they have a hard time to notify her of this, and their teenage child Mali enters into complete disobedience when she discovers. The movie is splendidly paradoxical– Margarita is self-consciously represented by Nicola Correia-Damude as a Mexican Mary Poppins (the referral is specific). Everybody likes her (not simply the household, however Carlos the garden enthusiast, the storekeepers– and, obviously, her commitment-phobic fan Jane). When Margarita is knocked off her bike, and therefore given the attention of the authorities and threatened with deportation, Ben and Gail understand they can’t handle without her, and, considering that they are not wed themselves (on concept) each of them in turn propose marital relationship to her in order to keep her in the nation (and obviously handling their home). These scenes are hilariously amusing– the heterosexual couple encouraged that each of them is making an alluring deal.

Margarita (à la Poppins) is obviously just thinking about weding for love, and the movie ends with Jane (lastly) proposing. Do we have a Jane Austen conclusion: all the social departments, chaos and individual disasters, nicely dealt with by marriage? I might be associating excessive satire to the movie, however it was so regularly self-ironising that I was inclined to check out the conclusion because light too. We presume that the rather shallow Jane is most likely commitment-phobic a minimum of in part since of Margarita’s class and race, and I for one did not feel the lesbian marital relationship conclusion was completion of her battles. In the end, the movie was more a feminist movie than a lesbian feel-good motion picture. It is not a coming out story; Margarita simply takes place to be a lesbian (and this is merely accepted by all the other characters in the movie). Her sexuality is not the focus: the movie is more worried with problems of social justice (class, race and migration policy) and with parenting, heterosexuality, marital relationship. Nevertheless, it handles all these problems with a light touch, and was that uncommon thing: a perfectly crafted, remarkably amusing, thought-provoking movie, which I can advise whole-heartedly.

Lesbiana

If you desire stir some history and politics into your joyful watching, then you can now acquire a copy of Myriam Fougère’s Lesbiana: A Parallel Transformation This documentary about lesbian separatist neighborhoods in The United States and Canada in the 1980s was evaluated on the opening night of the very first London Feminist Movie Celebration on 30 th November 2012. It is now readily available on DVD from the following site:

Soon after the screening, the Problem & & Strife cumulative mulled over the history and significance of lesbian separatism, and you can hear this conversation on our podcast, downloadable through this link.

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