Et In Arcadia Ego

And now for serious stuff. Race isn't something I really know how to talk about, having grown up in a monoculture. I've never had to consider it except as an abstract until moving over here. I've been thinking a lot about media presentations over the weekend.

I am concerned about the dehumanising effects of world media. I'm sick of seeing folks from abroad portrayed as victims. Now of course, if nothing interesting were happening in the country it wouldn't be news, and thus not being reported. But I am still starting to worry that it damages race relations by distorting our perceptions of foreign cultures. To take Iraq as an example, the only images we are given of Iraq are:

• Shakey camerawork of families wailing beside rubble
  
• Blurry, distant insurgents
• Crowds shouting in a disorientating language I don't understand
  

And if you want to see all of that in one go, definitely give Black Hawk Down a shot. Though it's about Mogadishu, Somalia, and I firmly believe the depiction of "the enemy" as an inhuman mass is a conscious stylistic choice to better give audiences the experience of being in a streetfight, nevertheless it goes through that list like a tickchart.

Journalists don't report Iraqi kids doing homework, because it's really boring. But even though I know, both logically and emotionally, that everyday stuff is going on, it's hard to keep that slippery fact in mind because they're not media images we are being given. Those three images are also purely emotional, visceral shots - and combined with a language barrier which makes the people we see unintelligable, it's hard to assign equal intelligence to them. Because of course I know, vaguely, or at least I'm pretty sure and it makes sense, that in Iraq there is as wide a variety of people as recogniseable from our streets: chav girls, bully boys, sensitive artistic souls, those who'll start an argument for no reason, or keep a debate going for the sheer delight of communicating. But that is only a very good guess, because the media has never given me any evidence for this. We are never shown a modern country evolved from an ancient culture, but a rabble of weeping, shouting folks in funny clothes.

One of the hardest hitting things for me during the Iran protests was photos of a shelled university dorm, because of course there universities in Iran, but it'd never consciously occured to me. Because Iran had never been introduced to me as anything but a potential nuke threat.

Everything gets boiled down to tropes. Until very recently, Doctor Who meant:

• man in a long scarf
• wobbly sets and rubbish monsters

...and as I have often pointed out, "Jack the Ripper" means:

• gentleman in top hat
• fog

But that arguably doesn't matter, because neither are real. Clash pointed out to me the way "Africa" is used as a country, not a continent containing countries; I think similar is true of "Arabia". I'd outline the media-Africa as:

• starving, potbellied children with flies (sometimes with celebs/aid workers)
  
• aparthite
• traditional dancing and singing
• Lions and giraffes
• rich white folk living in heavily protected walled zones vs. widespread criminal chaos
  

Again, note the total lack of intelligence: starvation, oppression, dancing and crime are all visceral, emotional sensations.

I also think language is part of the problem. One of the reasons I always preferred English/American holidays a choice terror of being unable to communicate. I always intend to learn enough to get by, but then never have the courage to try speaking it. Instead, I spend the week scrutinising street-signs as if I could lap it up. Being unable to speak is a serious handicap, and being abroad transforms us into mutes. The Hurt Locker - a less good film than Black Hawk Down, and I think overall quite a thin one - depicts this very well. How can an army communicate with people if they cannot speak the language? We're all used to the image, whether from movies or the news, of hundreds of "towelheads" running and rioting while depending on the period, either firing at nothing or waving scimitars - and crucially - shouting in a language, which to us sounds like guttural nonsense. As would any tongue we don't understand. When interviews are not translated, they are spoken in the understandably broken English of one for whom it is a second language. Yet in everyday life, we interpret people who speak slowly or pause while speaking as less able, and nevermind how many languages we can speak, it's hard not to box such images like that.

Especially because, even if England means:

• the Queen
• Upper class toffs playing cricket
• Tea. Butlers.
• Big Ben
• Emotional frigidity
• Shakespeare
  

...they nevertheless speak a language which "everyone" can understand, so those conceptions are easy to change with a three minute conversation. Similarly with America; and Europe is sufficiently boring, in news terms, that it isn't portrayed as a site of constant chaos. And it's not just the non-white world; the Cold War is very over, yet I can't remember the last time a news story broke about Russia that didn't involve them being sneaky and underhand.

This all came out in a bit of a flood. I've been very concerned about the state of THE ENTIRE WORLD, no doubt demoralised by heroes who can save the world in 50 minutes plus ad breaks. It occured to me that Whitechapel of the 1880s has merely been outsourced. In the Victorian period, nobody cared about industrial abuse because it was all going on in an East End no decent person visited. The rookeries got cleaned up in the aftermath of the killings, and we got legal representation and stuff; but modern sweatshops operate exactly the same way. Like Whitechapel, they're out of sight and mind to consumers.

In trying to come up with a way to resolve the world's inequalities, it occured to me that I was basically thinking of a significant proportion of the world as victims. Ever since then, I've found it hard to find a form of charity which does not seem to be covertly depicting people who need our help, as a bit too useless to take care of themselves. Reliant on generous Western handouts, but otherwise helpless, and a bit like animals: unable to communicate properly, propelled purely by hate, fear and hunger, and incapable of reasoning.

That might be overstating it. And I'm sure people in trouble would prefer my cash than vague liberal guilt. But I'm concerned that all this has only just concretely occured to me now, and it's reminded me how insidious popular media imagery can be.

It's certainly screwed some of my gender ideas up, in a way too complex to ever tackle via blog right now. But in short, I'm increasingly aware of being somehow deeply misogynistic, and it's something to do with the interminable portrayal of women in cinema. I wonder what else it's affecting? It is only with about a year of conscious effort that I've convinced myself that fruit is nice, and chocolate isn't. But I've got to really think about it, and unlearn everything television ever taught me; and I still choose chocolate on reflex.

On the other hand, perhaps I'm just very, very susceptible to television. At least, I know I'm susceptible to television; but I wonder how universal this is. More so than most people happily admit to, I would guess. I definitely think this TV-trained-racism is partly responsible for the total "hearts and minds" failure going on in Iraq and Afghanistan as we speak; although that is a bit different, because you have to dehumanise "the enemy" to sucessfully fight a war.

If you could believe the people you were shooting at were as human as your next door neighbour, you couldn't do it.

Further viewing:

Planet of the Arabs
I can't get enough of this short! It's a rock music montage of Arabian stereotypes from movies. Features crazy-towelhead-rioting, "all I want is to KILL AMERICANS!", "there's nothing to stop them going anywhere in the US!", "you American imperialist pig!" - it's hypnotic, hilarious, and as Polonius would put it, "tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity; And pity 'tis 'tis true"

"Born Free" - MIA
This music video just got banned, understandibly for violence, although it's turned into a bit of a censorship cause celebre. It is like the happy answer to everything I've wittered about today, using a genius idea which ahem I developed for a school assembly once...but don't think I hold a grudge, because it is an artistic masterpiece - gorgeously shot - and is definitely worth nine minutes of your time. I can't explain why without spoilers, so just see it y'know? Note how the American setting is codified with the now familiar tropes of the dust-war movie...

And now some thoughts:

• Do you agree? Disagree?
• How do you think we could improve representation?
• What is your favourite crazy-Arab movie? I was thinking maybe The Mummy, that's got some delicious stereotypes.
  
• And what do you think is the best representation of foreign cultures as equally human?
  

In today's issue: Clash comes to visit Fyfe Dangerfield (and also me); making a spectacle in public; Gordon Brown and Doctor Who

PART 1

Yesterday was just so, inexplicably good.


Clash was over to see Fyfe Dangerfield (and he was epic and marvellous, and I almost cried almost all the way through. Very beautiful music), and we'd already had a fun day of Doctor Who and ice creams. Tuesday morning was less funny, as I had to complete my essay and take it to the film department before 12 midday. I headed out on a solo mission, got it in with an hour to spare, and decided, on a whim, to go back home via an unusual route.

As I was passing, I noticed that Aldwych-abandoned-tube-station had people hanging around outside. So I asked, like I always do when there's someone at the door, whether I could have a peep inside.

Not expecting the answer yes. I've asked that question of surly bodyguard types, maybe twenty times in the past two years. I suppose I must have been looking fab, as some sort of fashion opening was going on.

It is no exaggeration to say there is no place on earth I would rather visit. This includes the TARDIS set, St Mark's Square and - yes - the Florida Haunted Mansion. Aldwych tube is rather like Holland or St James' Park in design, all dark smokey green tiles. The mahogany fittings have yet to be replaced with metal: the information desks are wood, the bannisters wood. It did just reek of old, but it's also true that it has been retrofitted old. There is a peculiarly beautiful quality of light in there.

As you go in, directly on your left is a two-person wide staircase down to the dark. Based on Holland Park's design, I believe these lead to the emergency stairs. And then a small, maybe eight step-staircase - also two-persons wide - up to a long corridor. The wall here had old fashioned tiles, maybe reading "BOOK HALL" or "BOOT HALL". (internet investigation reveals it said "BOOK HERE"). I would have loved to explore that way further. On the left were two information cubicles, markd ASSISTANCE, 1 and 2.

Next along was a beautiful corridor with a sign "WAY OUT AND TEMPLE STATION", written in old at the end; and beside it a second long corridor which, in my memory, was decorated in green leather. But I think I was confusing it with the general green-ness of the station, and the green leather sofas the art folks had moved in. Having since done some internet research, I can confirm both corridors were green. They were also not corridors, but the infamous disused lifts - but like all the Tube lifts, had doors one end and the other. They were supported with girders, so now they basically were corridors, but it was a strange feeling. They had the atmosphere and dimensions of richly decorated railway carriages. At the end of the chamber was an old, old tube map - and some confused fashionistas who asked if I was lost.

I would loved to have been able to explore longer and further, but I was rather intruding on their swish party and didn't want to get dragged out for going the wrong way. Not to come across as a boasting bastard, because almost my entire social circle share my love for that place, but I do feel like the most privileged creature on the planet right now.

Best photos of what I saw are here (and they don't convey the atmosphere), but a more rigorous history is here. And here is an account of the moment I fell in love with the place, one year ago.

I returned to the house and gabbled cheerily about it all. The sun was out, and we all headed off to the park to play with hula hoops and poi and have a big ole veggie picnic. Suprisingly successful - I can now hula like nobody's business, hips, hands and above my head, while Calypso has adopted the poi like koifish glittering underwater. Benvenita is just a natural hoop-crackshot, and has a perfect dancelike groove which I will never match; but then she does hoop virtually every afternoon. As a group, we looked very impressive.

I love Gordon Brown. I am now, for the first time, considering voting for him. That woman is a bigot who has no right to comment on Eastern European immigrants, in my experience some of the hardest working people in the country. In his position, I might have slapped her; and I respect him for standing up and saying the right thing.

Finally: never let me sell my Doctor Who collection. I know mine is modest, but a whole host of folks on Gallifrey Base have been shifting theirs in massive job-lots. Lot 1: All 400 Big Finish Plays. Lot 2: All the Annuals. Lot 3: All My Convention Programs. And so on. I understand space is space, and not everyone has a dimensionally trancendant attic, but I can't understand how you could divide up 30 years of love, and box it for strangers. You shouldn't be sentimental about stuff, but to my mind that's like physically packaging your past...

Who would be a woman?

There are lots of reasons why my chance genetic arrangement is unfortunate. One of the most superficial (and therefore, most pressing) is that I can't successfully adopt the dress of male style icons, whether in cosplaying or borrowing touches I like for everyday life. Absurdly, this bothers me worst not when pinching things from hero-guys, but straight after camp movies. I adore the style, grace and OTT femininity of transvestites and effeminate chaps - but of course, you have to be male in the first place to pull it off...

...and of course, there are ceilings of glass and the rest. Important stuff. But today, we are going to talk about shoes.

WHY DOES NO ONE MAKE REAL SHOES FOR WOMEN?

I am aware of the school of thought that turns pain into pleasure, and I even sympathise with the mindset that "you are suffering for beauty" hence "more beautiful". But that's on a case by case basis, not as part of a virulent disease.

Is the cliche that women get through shoes like toilet paper, while men locate a single pair and expect them to last believed by shoe companies? Does this then explain why the majority of womyn-shoes are painful and cheap-feeling? I'd certainly never again buy from New Look: they don't make shoes, they make foot accessories.
My one concession to serious, feminine cobblery was a lovely pair of eggshell blue heels. Which I have never worn, because a pair of shoes I can't run away in is, to my mind, not a real pair of shoes. They have no grip! And yes, you need grip even when standing around in ballrooms.

You almost got this rant last week when I was just back from shoe shopping. For the third or fourth year now, I endured my sister's disapproval and bought myself a pair of boy's shoes. To her mind, this is weird; and it's true, I always like to take time to warp the gender binary. But the plain fact is:

• They are flat. I can climb trees, walls, flee muggers and booby traps.
• They have grip. When attempting to climb trees e.t.c., I'm not going to slip.
• They are hard wearing. I'm not going to escape the muggers only to discover my socks are soaking.
• They are comfortable. We'll come to that one in a minute....
  

And that is why I always wear men's shoes. For years now, I've yet to find women's shoes which fit these categories. Admittedly, this is on the Island.

Is this just preconceptions about women getting out of control? Do such shoes exist? Even the fact they're hard to find suggests we are being offered a vastly inferior product, and also that they get away with it.

I've just had to join the Idiot Female Fashion Victim Club, and don heel-plasters. It's between that and consigning the red slippers I've always wanted to an Oxfam bag. I've known various people across the years who have done this, and I always thought it was ridiculous. Because what's more bloody stupid than wearing shoes which are uncomfortable? What has never occured to me - because this too seems bloody stupid - is that they were comfortable in the shop, and they only cease to be comfortable after subjected to extreme circumstances. You know - walking in them, or something. I can only have walked in my new shoes for 15 minutes max, and the backs of my heels are totally bruised, raw and unpleasantly sticky.

Change, please, and soon. The problem is, ideas about female foot-habits - including the "oh! I suffer for beauty!" one and the "I spend more on my shoes than my children!" one - seem to directly impact how the product is created. And in general, female shoes seem to bear the same resemblance to real shoes as Asda own-brand bread does to bakery produce. If a shoe does not provide comfort and grip, it is basically a bad shoe. In an ideal world, it should also be durable, though of course I make exceptions for daft party shoes. Exceptions which do not make walking the next day a painful enterprise. I feel like I've been forcibly pressganged into the ranks of miserable womanhood as a punishment for defection. It's horrible...

Funny finding things as you left them. The day before I left, I changed my desktop wallpaper to a Doctor/Master/Whitechapel one on Livejournal, partly because the synchronisity is too good to ignore, but mostly because it had photomanip'd them both into Victorian dress, and had a grungy sepia feel. I probably would find that more objectionable now. And finding items I thought I'd lost in London, and of course - all the clothes I left behind. Washing machine broken for so long that I went on a clothes shopping mission to Oxfam, in what was probably the most borgeosie act of my life. But clean clothes! Ah, excitement, and so is the excitement of having guilt-free milk and cerial in the cupboard!

Guernsey hasn't changed. Neither has the crappy quality of the internet connection to my room, which has trouble finding Google. Neither has my beautiful piano: suddenly, I understand why playing the piano has apparently lost all it's joy for me across the last term. Nothing can match having your own real piano, in a space where you can scream and bang as you like.

Or not. The most obvious change: my mum has repainted my room white, and doesn't seem to understand why I might find this objectionable. I'm more mock wounded than genuinely miserable, but all the same I feel a little weird. I'm more cheesed at the intrusion of it, that I wasn't asked first what I might want doing with my own damn room. For one thing, I wouldn't have chosen white. I'd have rolled with whatever current obsession was under way - steampunk now, who knows what else? My choice of brown wallpaper, curtains and doors was motivated in part by the yellow walls, aiming for a sort of sepia tone, and it now looks horribly out of place. I like rooms which are cluttered and cosy. White has the clinical glare of a sanitorium - I feel like I'm living in a mug of tic tacs. It's rather like that scene in Tideland where they paint everything white (and stuff the human corpse and leave it in the chair as taxidermy...). I've never felt comfortable in this house on my own - the reasons, one would hope, are subtly mundane (like the layout of rooms and quality of light) or a manifestation of how I feel about being here, and not otherworldly.

From an aesthetic perspective, I admit it looks good, especially if I wanted to go nautical or Space: 1999. But then there are the posters, which haven't been replaced. People with goldfish memories need tangible reminders, and I do get very sentimental that way. I mean, it does represent the clutter of a life - and all my posters I put up at a certain time, for a certain reason, reasons which I can't bring myself to duplicate now. And I'm not sure anything can replace my Doctor Who glow-in-the-dark stars which, I note, are no longer on my roof.

Little things have changed too: I found myself giving advice on rice cooking. My sister can drive and also now has a beau.

And some things have almost changed. Like The March of the Movies, a book from the 50s about cinema that I'd never read. I took a flick through to see if there were interviews with Jessie Matthews (who we studied this term) and discovered, to my joy, loads of plates of London Town, an epic flop musical and worst film I've ever seen. Last term this would have meant nothing to me - now, I'm very amused. It must have been hot stuff at the time.