Completely irrelevant weekend chatterboxing

1. R is for Redbones. JD and I decided to walk to Redbones last night in celebration of the gorgeous weather. It really was lovely, but the next time I go on a four mile walk-- I should probably wear comfortable shoes. I have a lovely new set of blisters, though! This was JD's first trip to Redbones, and my third. I love it. I'm a big fan of meat, and every time i go to a barbecue place I end up getting pulled pork. The pulled pork at Redbones is some of the moistest, most flavorful i've had in Boston. The only downside is that I think it took us less time to walk there-- an hour-- than it did to take the T home.

2. JD downloaded the pilot for Caprica. I'm thrilled to see what they're doing with it-- the prequel to BSG. BSG had a lot of interesting charecter interactions and strong female charecters, plus excellent writing, so I'm hoping Caprica lives up to its example.

3. The majority of today and tomorrow will be spent buried in my Tax and Trusts&Estates hornbooks. Joy. See you on Monday with a new post!

Sexual Fluidity

I've just begun reading this really fascinating book discussing a longitudinal study of young women and their sexuality.  I'm not very far in yet, but even the basic background topics are super interesting and provide a lot of material for fun thought experiments.  One of the  main ideas the book posits is that female sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality.  Its focus is, I think on the sex of the people one is attracted too... but it also does note that sexual fluidity can also apply to other areas of attraction.  And that made me think..

Most people I know have a "type", in some way, but the type itself.... varies.  I have one friend who mainly attracted to tall, broad shouldered, "jocky" guys, who are intelligent and a little aggressive.  She has had flings with men who don't fit the description... but most of the men she had always described as being interested in fit that narrow description.

I, personally, have a broader range-- men that are tall, intelligent, well read, funny, and a little arrogant.  But my physical standards-- other than that they're of a similar height to me or taller-- have never been as firm.  Hell, I don’t even stick to one ethnicity.  One of my friends in college described me as not having a type one time.  At first, I was a little offended, but after some reflection i decided that hey, that's a good thing!  I'm more open to men who might be different but awesome.  I've always been exceedingly picky about who I’ll actually be in a relationship to, but open to giving almost anyone a chance at a casual date. 

But what I’m wondering now is—how much fluidity is there in the average person, not in terms of sexual orientation, but in terms of taste and preference.  The book posits that women are more fluid in orientation, but are we also, in general more fluid in the type of people we date?   I really don’t have an answer on this one—I haven’t really observed too much about this, even though I do talk a lot with my friends about our dating lives.  As far as the small subset of over-educated nerds I know goes, it seems that most of us are fairly consistent in personality—or at least, consistent once you get past a few intro dates.  However, there does seem to be a large variation in the appearance of people my friends date, regardless of gender.  Granted, a few things remain consistent—everyone tends to go for people of around similar attraction levels—but specifics change.  It does seem like the guys might stick to a specific body type more than the women do—but part of that may also be due to the fact that society tells us that men are attractive with a wider range of physical appearances than women are.  Still, we can all write out a description of what we like, and there tend to be some characteristics we like more than outhers.  Really, it makes sense for us to not be too fluid, since our personalities tend to stay relatively stable as adults—and while a ton of personalities may seem fun, dating around helps us realize what personalities actually work with our own.

Avatar

SPOILERS. SPOILERS. DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS.

To be sure, Avatar in 3D is visually stunning, and sort of amazing.

But it is also... a little bit boring, slowly plotted, trite, and predictable.

The story is pretty basic, a sort of Fern Gully/Pocahontas (myth and Disney, not actual history) for grownups-- backstory is, humans find a new planet with some ridiculous rock substance, they develop work sites, the native population doesn't like them, humans try to establish a school to teach them English and modern things, the natives are like "Um, no. We like our lifestyle, thank you very much. Neurotoxin arrows, anyone?", and things fall apart.

The story, as we join it, is the transformation one "dumb" ex-Marine goes through as he learns of the interconnectivity of life, falls in love with a native woman, and manages to get accepted by a tribe (including, surprise surprise, her aggressive former suitor). It is HORRIBLY predictable. You know they will fall in love, you know that he will be accepted, and you know they will triumph. The foreshadowing over small details is even enough that you end up being able to predict those too. But predictability, in itself, isn't a killing stroke-- after all, men and women are both portrayed well in the movie-- as strong individuals, with rich emotional lives, capable of being scientists or warriors. They actually do a pretty good job on that front, without reducing toooo much to gender stereotypes. Though, of course, they make the military leader of the natives a hereditary male role, and the spiritual leader a hereditary female role. Which, yawn. Whatever. It's to be expected, I guess, even if it is an unconscious nod to the patriarchy. the inclusion of a woman as the lab PI and a woman as the best fighter pilot sort of help to make up for it on the feminism front, at least.

But the movie still has other problems. for a 3D movie, it's villains are awfully 2D. Their motivations are greed and bloodlust, and they have no complexity or moral qualms. While I know there are people like that, if you're going to have a movie as long as Avatar, with as much time spent on slow exposition, you might as well at least invest another ten minutes into making your villains real, into establishing some level of something more than simple disgust for them.

My biggest problem though goes back to the tired and played out trope of the Noble Savage. A quick Google search will show you plenty of people better able to talk about it at length than I am. But still-- it irks me, from the way the lead woman's voice is accented to her clipped stereotypical speech, to the way the native men regard the protagonist, to just-- the trappings of the culture.

I think the reason this all disappoints me so much is that it has the potential to be so much more. Stories about conservation and interconnectivity with nature are important, as are stories that feature strong women as scientists and warriors. But in the end, Avatar doesn't live up to it's promise.