Last night's New Year party was attended by a large, unusual clump of family - so large and unusual that Number Two created party games. I'm not good at late nights, and I think in the future I will eschew the wait until midnight, go to bed at a sensible time, and if not waking to see the sunrise, then waking fresh for the new year. And I don't even drink, so I'm not plagued by the New Year's hangover. I'd rather celebrate something new than something that is gone - and in the case of 2011, the celebrations universally seemed a wake where all the money-grabbing relatives are hanging around to make sure the old year is properly dead, fingering garden-shears and dainty perfume bottles of arsenic just in case.
But the games were fun. One of which was the Who Am I? game - a name is put on the forehead, and the player asks questions to work out who
I mainly like this game because, for a moment, I pretend that everyone is in some way transformed. I was Tigger; my glam sister Oceanic was Lady Gaga, my glam cousin was the Queen, and my science-expert grandfather was Sherlock Holmes, proving his qualification for the character through deduction guessing who he was first. Number Two was The Man in the Moon, a perennially difficult favourite of mine, the imagery appeals. In fact, I have an ATC dedicated to it.
It's also fun, sociologically speaking, seeing what questions do and do not get asked. Most people start with "Am I male?", with "I must therefore be female" assumed as the inverse. This is a safe bet for most mainstream games, if also problematic. Does it offer a window into the brain, I wonder, whereby people would box Gaga* and Garbo together as women more instinctively then they would group them with Sting or Gregory Peck into careers, or Rhianna and Frank Sinatra in eras of time. After all, you are flailing in the dark with your first question and knowing the gender doesn't narrow things down far; and yet I tend to ask it first too. It'd be fun to try and play the game without that question - if you've described "a fictional detective from the Victorian era" then asking the gender is immaterial, because there's one reasonable answer.
*When my sister asked, I was tempted to argue the toss here, but I'm not sure that Gaga has been explicit about how she feels about this.
When I asked for my gender - am I male - as Tigger, I got a murmer of discontented "yes-ish", because "am I male" isn't terribly specific. Does it mean "am I male gendered?" - yes - or "am I a human male?" - no.
Another interesting one was raised by my aunt: "Am I white?". Retrospectively, this should be a really good question, but it isn't because I can't remember ever playing a game of Who Am I featuring a non-white person. Because, y'know, mainstream dominant culture + white family. In fact, when my ten-year-old cousin, Santa, asked if he was white - and we all chorused an unthinking assent - I was also kinda impressed with my uncle for remembering to say "he might not be white". Sociological Images did a post on this recently establishing that without exception, Santa is percieved as a white chap on no evidence - rather similar to that other bearded deity of the Yultide, Jesus, who's typically white even with strong evidence to the contrary. So while that's a kinda unhelpful comment in the context of the game - the character of Santa is a white - there's no reason why he should be. They both go on my Christmas card list for this. My aunt and uncle live in New Zealand - that they both, to me at least, seemed a notch more race-aware than the rest of us is interesting. Are things different down there?
It wasn't all analysis, I promise. It's just that game gets through a lot of assumptions about humanity. The most memorable moment was my cousin, aged ten, as Santa, asking
In other news. Today, Number Two and I looked through the magazines at the airport. The only magazine I read is the Fortean Times - a fun and smart tour through parapsychological phenomena, aliens, sasquatches, talking dogs, and Jesus on a pizza roll, all with a tone of scholarly enthusiasm but healthy skeptecism.
I mentioned that I found women's magazines very depressing. Cosmo has been on my mind recently. I've sort-of enjoyed reading Cosmopolitics - a sociological analysis of exactly what is so damn wrong with the magazine - and Cosmocking - the same thing, but with trolling (link NSFW. Or parents.). I say sort-of because even in the context of safe feminist anger/satire, Cosmo still makes me feel completely inadequate.
I dragged him over to the shelf and had a pint-sized rant, the way you do at 9 o'clock in the morning after a party that went on till 1. I pointed out the differences between Cosmo-style magazines, and the ones that my mum reads - Woman and Home, Essentials. Even though they make an awful lot of assumptions, and the clue is in the title with "Woman and Home", they are essentially good-natured and packed with articles about middle aged women beating cancer, feeling happy about their bodies, and starting their own businesses while caring for wonderful children. Mainstream, sure, but empowering and positive for those women who aspire to domestic ideals - and certainly not as mean-spirited. Cosmo October 2011 offers you "Times he wants you to be jealous", "50 things you should never stop doing in a relationship" and "shrink your inner thighs in six minutes a day" and "four words that seduce any man, any time". The scandal sheets are fun - "murdered to death in front of my childen by my lesbian ex-cousin on my wedding night: one honeymoon horror of bloody death and mayhem" - but neither reassuring, nor scary in a useful way.
For the young girl, I pointed out a magazine called "Pink". What's it about? I don't know. Girl things. It's pink. And Mizz magazine's new tagline is "style, gossip, boys". Because.
But the games were fun. One of which was the Who Am I? game - a name is put on the forehead, and the player asks questions to work out who
I mainly like this game because, for a moment, I pretend that everyone is in some way transformed. I was Tigger; my glam sister Oceanic was Lady Gaga, my glam cousin was the Queen, and my science-expert grandfather was Sherlock Holmes, proving his qualification for the character through deduction guessing who he was first. Number Two was The Man in the Moon, a perennially difficult favourite of mine, the imagery appeals. In fact, I have an ATC dedicated to it.
It's also fun, sociologically speaking, seeing what questions do and do not get asked. Most people start with "Am I male?", with "I must therefore be female" assumed as the inverse. This is a safe bet for most mainstream games, if also problematic. Does it offer a window into the brain, I wonder, whereby people would box Gaga* and Garbo together as women more instinctively then they would group them with Sting or Gregory Peck into careers, or Rhianna and Frank Sinatra in eras of time. After all, you are flailing in the dark with your first question and knowing the gender doesn't narrow things down far; and yet I tend to ask it first too. It'd be fun to try and play the game without that question - if you've described "a fictional detective from the Victorian era" then asking the gender is immaterial, because there's one reasonable answer.
*When my sister asked, I was tempted to argue the toss here, but I'm not sure that Gaga has been explicit about how she feels about this.
When I asked for my gender - am I male - as Tigger, I got a murmer of discontented "yes-ish", because "am I male" isn't terribly specific. Does it mean "am I male gendered?" - yes - or "am I a human male?" - no.
Another interesting one was raised by my aunt: "Am I white?". Retrospectively, this should be a really good question, but it isn't because I can't remember ever playing a game of Who Am I featuring a non-white person. Because, y'know, mainstream dominant culture + white family. In fact, when my ten-year-old cousin, Santa, asked if he was white - and we all chorused an unthinking assent - I was also kinda impressed with my uncle for remembering to say "he might not be white". Sociological Images did a post on this recently establishing that without exception, Santa is percieved as a white chap on no evidence - rather similar to that other bearded deity of the Yultide, Jesus, who's typically white even with strong evidence to the contrary. So while that's a kinda unhelpful comment in the context of the game - the character of Santa is a white - there's no reason why he should be. They both go on my Christmas card list for this. My aunt and uncle live in New Zealand - that they both, to me at least, seemed a notch more race-aware than the rest of us is interesting. Are things different down there?
It wasn't all analysis, I promise. It's just that game gets through a lot of assumptions about humanity. The most memorable moment was my cousin, aged ten, as Santa, asking
"Am I real?"Number Two reacted on reflex with "NO!", and the rest of us smattered "no" or "yes" as appropriate - I think my uncle said yes, I can't remember what I said. Followed by a hearty, guilty giggle from everyone, and a glare from my aunt.
"You'll have to ask your mum the answer to that question," Dad corrected.Kept us in giggles for some time.
"Not real," my aunt clarified.
\~~~~***!***~~~/
In other news. Today, Number Two and I looked through the magazines at the airport. The only magazine I read is the Fortean Times - a fun and smart tour through parapsychological phenomena, aliens, sasquatches, talking dogs, and Jesus on a pizza roll, all with a tone of scholarly enthusiasm but healthy skeptecism.
I mentioned that I found women's magazines very depressing. Cosmo has been on my mind recently. I've sort-of enjoyed reading Cosmopolitics - a sociological analysis of exactly what is so damn wrong with the magazine - and Cosmocking - the same thing, but with trolling (link NSFW. Or parents.). I say sort-of because even in the context of safe feminist anger/satire, Cosmo still makes me feel completely inadequate.
I dragged him over to the shelf and had a pint-sized rant, the way you do at 9 o'clock in the morning after a party that went on till 1. I pointed out the differences between Cosmo-style magazines, and the ones that my mum reads - Woman and Home, Essentials. Even though they make an awful lot of assumptions, and the clue is in the title with "Woman and Home", they are essentially good-natured and packed with articles about middle aged women beating cancer, feeling happy about their bodies, and starting their own businesses while caring for wonderful children. Mainstream, sure, but empowering and positive for those women who aspire to domestic ideals - and certainly not as mean-spirited. Cosmo October 2011 offers you "Times he wants you to be jealous", "50 things you should never stop doing in a relationship" and "shrink your inner thighs in six minutes a day" and "four words that seduce any man, any time". The scandal sheets are fun - "murdered to death in front of my childen by my lesbian ex-cousin on my wedding night: one honeymoon horror of bloody death and mayhem" - but neither reassuring, nor scary in a useful way.
For the young girl, I pointed out a magazine called "Pink". What's it about? I don't know. Girl things. It's pink. And Mizz magazine's new tagline is "style, gossip, boys". Because.
"At the same time," I noted, "there isn't really "men's magazines" in the same sense"It was sincerely meant, but also cut straight to the heart of the problem.
"Well I guess men read magazines dedicated to their interests. Men just have lots of different interests. Women when they get together can gossip about anything but men like to talk about things they're interested in.
"Yes, because all women everywhere are exactly the same and are interested in whatever it is women talk about, but men are all individuals with an individual set of interesting hobbies and thoughts."Then we both had a good giggle; Number 2 suggested magazines for teenage girls offering something smarter. I've thought this so many times, and in my heart I trust it would genuinely sell and sell well. Still - I think his comment is a really valuable one because it cuts right to the heart of the problem.
