Men and What's the Point

I took the bus into the city today because I didn’t want to waste a pretty day inside. I used to go downtown for school, and I came to love how busy it was (even though I later transferred for the same reasons). I love people watching, I love all the pigeons and seeing the male ones try and fail to impress the girls, but most of all I love, love, trains. 

ALSO, I tried matcha for the first time because my friend loves it…Listen, I wanted to like it so, so bad. I probably should’ve put sugar in it, but I kinda got scared and ran out of the cafe. But IT TASTES LIKE FISH. LIKE SEAWEED MILK. I heard previously that it would taste like dirt or green tea and I thought hey, I love both of those things, so it can’t be that bad — but no! I wasn’t expecting fish but I totally should’ve expected fish. I’m carefully transporting it home to revive it with some honey, but i’m kind of afraid of it. Whatever though, I really like trying new things. I’ve tried a lot of new foods because of her, it’s been cool.

i’m finally finished with Wuthering Heights! I also really wanted to like it a lot, but at no point in the book did I really enjoy it. I mean, you're probably not supposed to. And maybe I have to try it again. It was exhausting. I felt exhausted watching all the women in the novel attempt to “re-educate” the male characters into beings that would respect their autonomy or personhood. I mean, the “happy” ending I was waiting for ended up being Cathy literally educating Hareton by teaching him to read. I want to rant more about the book, I’m going to make another post for my book club :-)

My mom, sister and I watched the film Men recently and it was really frustrating. To preface, I think horror films are just ew in general — not because I’m scared, but because they’re so unnecessary. It always feels so fantastical to me. There’s so much real evil in the world, I can’t imagine wanting to see it for entertainment. Like, the premise of wanting to watch gore and violence to have fun is weird. I understand that there is a sense of relief (?) for the viewer experiencing horror because they “survive” (???) by finishing the movie, but it’s just — I don’t think there is a need for violence to be seen and enjoyed. Okay, maybe I sound like a puritanical mom right now, but whatever!!! People that like horror are skeevy to me, particularly men, and especially when the kind of horror they enjoy are those misogynistic slasher films. I remember talking to my coworker about how slasher films tend to present as the filmmaker’s (and viewer’s) desire to see women brutalized and she was flabbergasted and said she hadn’t thought about that before ???. Why would I want to watch a grown man run around and stab half-naked teenage girls in their houses??? What’s the point???

Anyways, back to Men. You know!!! I really hate the phrase “toxic masculinity.” Not only is the word “toxic” just so trivial and ridiculous, but all forms of masculinity are inherently toxic. No, scratch that — masculinity is inherently misogynistic. It just is. And I guess it was meant to be to massively draw distinctions between itself and anything remotely female-related. My sister really liked the film, but when I learnt that a male wrote and directed it, it’s like — okay, so you are literally the guy in the film who wants desperately to be seen as “one of the good ones,” who “understands,” and “relates,” but will never actually grasp the concept beyond what is told to you by women. What bothered me was how disjointed the entire thing was and what actually pissed me off was how it felt like an amalgamation of loose feminist-theories and experiences of misogyny all thrown into one random package, written by a man, and hey, also with some cheap body-horror (a bunch of men giving birth, hello?) as a bonus. But there was, ok — the different depictions of misogynistic men, the fetishization of the female body, of pregnancy, and feminine ties to eco-spirituality, the guilt-tripping, manipulative marriage, et. al — (sorry for all the m dashes, I don’t know how 2 write :-P) ...And it just felt like it was carelessly thrown together, blended up and spewed out by a guy who has a clear interest in misogyny but in a morbidly fascinated kind of way, not in any way that is conducive to feminism. He likes the horror of it all, and maybe even likes the idea of being “in” with the crowd that “gets” it, but nothing beyond that. Basically, it was shit and I didn’t know Alex Garland also was involved in 28 Days Later. Why the heck am I seeing Cillian Murphy’s FULL FRONTAL you weirdo. Ok bye.