The Femenist Question

A few years ago I was watching a fairly superficial interview with Hugh Heffner and the reporter made some comment alluding to how much Feminists must hate him… Hugh had a very interesting response. He noted that in his early days with Playboy and right up until the late 70’s he was considered a sort of pioneer in the feminist movement and that at some point things changed and he became the target.

He expanded a bit on the subject by saying that in the 50’s and 60’s he was one of the first people to not only accept, but promote the woman’s right to express herself as a sexual being without be labeled or judged.

For whatever reason, this interview has always stuck with me… My initial thought was that Mr. Heffner was glossing over the big difference between promoting a woman’s right to sexual expression and exploiting it. And in my opinion, Hugh was exploiting it… But the more I thought about it the more I realized that the big difference was not really that big at all… in fact, the whole subject is quite abstract. Is having a woman pose nude, or strip, or dance in a music video really exploitive? If the woman wants to do it, agrees to it, gets paid well to do it- is it still exploitation?

I don’t see how it could be.

But on the other hand, I have a little sister… I have many nieces… I don’t want them to watch music video’s or see billboard ads of scantily clad girls and think “that’s what a woman is supposed to be.”

I don’t want my nieces to grow up to become a stripper… and that brings up a whole separate issue… As many of you know, I love strippers… I’ve known some strippers and for the most part- they’re decent people. They’re mothers. They’re daughters. They’re sisters… They’re- gulp- nieces…

So even though I don’t want my niece to become a stripper, I have a hard time with telling some 24 year old girl who dancers as a means to put food on the table that she shouldn’t do what she’s doing because it sets a bad example…

I think little girls (or little kids in general) should strive to be anything they want to be. Doctors, Lawyers, Veterinarians, Politicians, all that… but not everybody can get there.

I wanted to coach the University of Maryland basketball team when I was a kid… but it didn’t happen. Should I beat myself up over that?

Somebody has to be a mechanic, somebody has to be a window washer, somebody has to be a ditch digger, and somebody has to be a stripper…

So where is the line?

Shouldn’t a woman be able to make a living doing whatever she wants do as long as it’s legal?

Does a woman have a responsibility to not let herself be made into a sex object?

Is Hugh Heffner a feminist? Or is he an exploiter?

I’ve thought about this subject a lot and yet the more I debate the issue in my mind- the further I get from any conclusion… The only thing I’m sure of is the fact that I’m not sure about anything.

Hall of Fame

I was riding in to work this morning and the shuffle button on my MP3 player was in the zone... It followed up a Biggie song with some Big Pun and it got me thinking about fat entertainers. I decided that it was more or less my duty to start a Fat Guy Hall of Fame!

There should be a couple of ground rules though. For instance, I don't want any of these Fat Guy Imposters... You know, guys that are a little big boned but they try and count themselves as a Fat Guy. A few notable examples include the Beluschi brothers and Don Francisco.

The other major group that should be excluded is guys who had big accomplishments when they were relatively thin but then later on ballooned up... Good examples would be Elvis, Ronaldo, and Marlon Brando (he wasn't really that fat in The Godfather he just had a really large head).

Of course the final rule of the Hall of Fame is that I can make up, change, or ignore the rules as we go with no explanation needed.

The way it will work is, if you have a Fat Guy of note that you believe qualifies for the Hall of Fame then send in the nomination to the comments section of this or any future post on my blog... I'll make my judgment and then if they make the cut they'll be placed on the Fat Guy HOF list which I'll be adding as a permanent link on the left column of my Blog.

The Fat Guy nominee should have made some notable accomplishment[s] to the world, in general, but in theory should alkso have done something for the greater good of the common Fat Guy.

Just to give a good example of how it works, I have a list of three inaugural Fat Guy Hall of Fame Nominees:

GEORGE FOREMAN:

In my opinion George falls under the category of someone that really isn't fat, just big boned... he also made many of his major accomplishments when he was a young thin boxer in the 70's... So by definition he probably should not qualify for the Hall of Fame BUT in this case, I'm willing to make an exception for 3 reasons.

[1] Fat guys get the stereotype of being jolly... and while George is in fact very jolly, he can also kick your ass! Although the theory cannot be proven, I'll bet the commom Fat Man has had to hear a few less fat jokes in his life time just because of the George Foreman/fat people hit hard factor.

[2] he knocked out Michael Moorer to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World at age of 45! I was 14 at the time and watched it all happen in my parent’s basement with Moe Greene riding shotgun… It remains one of the best moments I've ever witnessed in sports.

and [3] the Grill... I mean seriously, have you ever used one of these things?! You can cook ANYTHING on a George Foreman grill and it comes out perfect. It's virtually impossible to fuck up a meal on one of these grills... plus they're way easy to clean!

For those reason, George qualifies as a member in the Fat Guy Hall of Fame.

BIG PUN:

Pun waddled onto the scene in the late 90's with the underground hit "Not a Player," and then the mainstream radio remix "Still Not a Player."

His full-length debut- Capital Punishment- followed in 1998, and was the first album by a solo Latino rapper to go platinum.

(I'll plead the fifth on whether or not that short bio was more or less copied and pasted from wikipedia).

Had the story ended there he would be a sure bet for The Fat Guy Hall of Fame... but sadly, that's not how it ended... Once he found some success Pun quickly went from a cute and cuddly 400 lbs to a frightening 700 pounds! Not surprisingly he died of a heart attack soon after, prompting Moe Greene to give me countless lectures on my weight as he scarffed down salty McDonald's fries. So I'm sure that if I had to hear the lectures, then the thousands of other common Fat Guys did too... Gee, thanks Pun... Just what I always wanted, a lecture about my weight...

His widow has also alleged that Pun was occasionally abusive- but since Pun can't really give his side of the story it's hard to pass judgment on that, but still...

So while I will always love Pun, for those two reasons I can't put him in the Fat Guy Hall of Fame...

THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G.:

Off the top of my head I can't think of ANYONE who is more deserving of The Fat Guy Hall of Fame... As far as I'm concerned Biggie gets his own section in the HOF.

In addition to being the greatest rapper of all time (and I will NOT argue about that because it is indisputable) his contributions to the average fat guy went WAY beyond pure music... He actually made it cool to be a fat guy for like a 2-3 year stretch while I was in High School.

He was really really black, really really fat, he was sweaty, AND he had a lazy eye; BUT he somehow managed to nail a bunch of female celebrities and lord only knows how many groupies, strippers, and aspiring rap video "actresses".

He was laid back and easy going but had an infinite amount of street cred… He was bursting with confidence yet he felt no shame in revealing his early life struggles with low self esteem… He went from being a fat kid with glasses who was targeted by bullies, to being perhaps one of the coolest human being to ever walk the earth.

I'm also pretty sure that I can directly credit him for getting me laid at least twice- but that's just a personal theory.

More importantly, he gave confidence to a lot of fat kids out there who are now in their mid to late 20's. And for that he shall forever hold the loftiest of spots in my Fat Guy Hall of Fame!

Now let the nominations roll in!

BELATED BIRTHDAY

It just occurred to me today that last month my blog had its first birthday… I’m not really sure how I managed to miss that, but I did.

When I started this blog I wasn’t expecting for it to have gone as long as it has, and I certainly couldn’t have expected to have actual readers… but here I am, still blogging, and you people are still reading… Instead of rambling on about all the things I've written over the last year I’ve decided to take a look back at what some of you all were writing when my blog started.

Of course not all of my favorite bloggers were blogging back then, but for those of you who were… hope you don’t mind me snooping around in your archives…

Chicana on the Edge had a horror story about an airline losing her luggage…

Cracked Chancla was busy revealing her plan to become her own boss and open a bookstore...

Dr. Vodka was learning not to let her job in Medicine keep her from surpressing her life as an artist...

Gustavo Rojo (you know, back when he had time to blog) gave me my first blog shout out, and oh yeah it was a pretty kick ass post too...

Jenn of Jenn’s Journey was finally able to finish the dissertation that she started in October 2003...

JHD went on a rant about INXS selling out...

Cindylu used her puking experience as the inspiration to reveal her top 5 most embarrassing moments...

Vanessa was getting ready for the Superclasico between her beloved Club America and their rival Chivas… it’s a great post but my favorite part is actually found in the comments section. Some Chivas fan rambles on about how much better Chivas is than everyone else because they win with an all-Mexican team... and then he wraps up his comment by saying that he dislikes Club America because they have a “we are better than everyone else” attitude… to bad spell check doesn’t have an option to search for hypocrisy!

Santiago waxed poetic on his love of… well, love...

Sonrisa Morena confessed to her family’s Labor Day gathering turning into a viewing party for la Madrasta...

And finally, the CincySunDevil had this hilarious post listing the ways his job at the time was actually very similar to being confined in a retirement community...



*I searched for way too long to try and find the achieve section for CAD who's No Controles is one of my favortie blogs, but she seems to have gotten rid of it... you know, probably to keep people like me from looking through her old posts!