Pocahontas is my Favorite Disney Movie. Hands Down.

Facebook profile pic, wut- wuttt!

OK, so I'm biased. Also I am not a Powhatan so I'm not entitled to any sort well-placed anti-Disney rage at their impossibly racist/inaccurate history with their animation.

But here's the proof to substantiate my claim:

• This is the only Disney animated movie inspired by fact.
• The film's premiere was a huge event in Central Park. With over 100,000 people attending, it holds the record for the largest movie premiere.
• The Europeans using matchlock muskets was a nice touch. This is exactly what mariners would be using at the time, as the wheellock was too delicate and expensive and the snaphaunce (forerunner of the flintlock) was still too new and unreliable for general use (especially at sea).
• Animators working on the film regarded "Pocahontas" as being one of the hardest films ever produced by the studio. The complex color schemes, angular shapes and facial expressions meant that the film was in production for 5 years. The hard work paid off, however. Pocahontas herself is now frequently cited as being one of the most beautifully and realistically animated characters in the Disney canon, her fluid movements mainly being attributed to rotoscoping.
• Lastly... and most importantly....Kocoum was crazy hot.

I always cry like a baby when Thomas nails him in the chest. Just, one of the many sad, sad, side-effects of colonialism.

Sexy vs Slutty and the Real Reason We Can't Win

Freakum Dress - Beyoncé

It's not a girl's fault that the mere size of her tatas dictates how low-cut she can wear something and what she gets away with...unless you measure fault in genetic predispositions and number of potato-chips consumed in a lifetime. While I'm a firm believer in booty-shorts and pretty lingerie (not necessarily alone as an outfit), there are things which my puritanical heart can't seem to sail a Mayflower on.

(That metaphor sounded nice but I do know that Puritans and Pilgrims are completely different sets of people)

Boobs are tough, symbolically that is. While I and most other women have to deal with them unquestioningly, the problems they present are manifold. Small-chested women face the stigma of being seen as boyish, unfeminine... and the chestier of us err on the edge of obscenity. My own Asian mother (who loved to take us to family dinners at Hooters) yodeled at me since I filled out at 14, saying things like "Your breasts are always showing!" and "Why can't you be more modest?" Even if you drape a sheet over an elephant... a five year-old would able to make the shape out anyway. There's just no hiding.

And so I get to my point- or turning point: sluttiness is for the extremes of society. Its attainable only by those at the fringes, either very rich or very poor. Arguably, the middle class...status quo as it is... just does not engage in this as heavily. But... as a poor college student I may attest to the bosom of the issue. An excess of money and an extreme lack of it can afford people the luxury of dressing however the f*ck they feel. Is this magical or tragical, who can say?


Exhibit A:

Ivanka Trump,
daughter of Donald, whose net worth is about 3 billion.

Exhibit B:

Random Model,
g r e a t g l a m . com

Lessons Learned

• Having millions at your disposal and a real income = sexy
• Having $20.80 to spend on a dress with no label but a stupid name = slutty

And for those who don't find this dress objectionable or even curious, I leave you with a testimonial from the site in question:

My hat is off to you, Mary T. May you forever be young and wear your shirts as low as your boobs will hang.

Conceptualize THIS, you punks.

What's on the plate this time? Just spending too much time in the VES department, I think that I am perhaps a little overexposed to contemporary conceptual art... sometimes we just want something real, beautiful, complicated in a different way. And what's more complicated than a good male nude (or semi-nude). Here's just a little to get your heART back where it should be.

A couple Saint Sebastians:

My favorite by Odilon Redon, so beautiful and so luminous...

Superdrama - Regnier Nicolas
Botticelli (It's not my favorite, I just think that expression is priceless)

¡¡¡¡Warning!!!! The next picture acknowledges that men have genitalia!!!
AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO HANDLE A WEE-WEE.

The New Adam, 1962, Harold Stevenson
It's so monumental, it's just about perfect.

I don't really know why but I think its about oversaturation, so many artists have done the voluptuous, vulnerable naked-lady shdig... also, why not admire the male body in a non-submissive, excellent way?

Weirdbeard the Great and Terrible

Those closest to me know my deepest fears. These are not fears of the slippery tentacles of death or the blunt gnashing teeth of hippopotamuses/hippopotami. Rather, one of my deepest fears, is that of the alienation, the totally life destroying phenomena of...

female facial hair.

My greatest fear? It's spontaneously growing a beard.

Illustrated in the Style of Hashiguchi Goyo... but much less beautiful.

Also, note feathered headbands, by yours truly.

The Problem With College

How can you make sure that you're not just hopping from one algae-covered stepping stone to the next algae-covered stepping stone, ever destined (if not now then eventually, anyhow) to slip and get your jeans soaked and muddy up to your thigh? That you're not just reading the directions to be directly directed in the right direction?

What I mean is, am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing or what I am meant to be doing? There's a huge f***ing difference between the two. And the ambitiously naive part of my worried little head is tugging on the bottom of my skirt, hiding behind my legs at the supermarket, asking if it can have this or if it can have that. And I want to tell this part of me that it can have whatever it wants. "Yes, you can have Froot Loops and not the generic bagged brand. Yes, you can get that Hello Kitty alarm clock, yes you can have a Hershey's bar, yes you can have those cheap and tacky sunglasses on the plastic rack by the batteries." And so on.

But instead, I'm leaning down and saying, "I'm sorry honey... maybe next time?"

And this extended metaphor... which is getting creepier as I think about it... what I really mean by it is...
Why are books at the Coop so goddamn expensive??????

I just want to take nice classes, Harvard. Why must you deny me this? Is it my fault that Interracial Literature has nine books ($181.27)... or that Historical Studies A-14 has a 70 dollar coursepack that looks like something my elementary school teacher put together? Honestly, its plastic-spiral bound, with a construction paper cover. Sensational. I was so worried about getting a full refund on my books because of my previous experience with those skinflinty scrooges that I showed a little cleavage to the cashier (he turned out to be gay, go fig'). See the new lows I have been brought to for the pursuit of an education? See the desperation?

And while I shuck and jive for course materials, I can't help but trip on the irony that I may have made it into an amazing school... but still can't even afford to do my homework. When you get called on in section I doubt a suitable answer would be, "I'm sorry, I'm just too po' to tell you what Emile Durkheim said about that."

In all seriousness though, the problem with college is that the scholarly education comes from only what is within your means. I know this is a little heavier than my usual outfit-posting and and rants about advertising, but its true enough for me to be a little downhearted. And while I'm shopping for courses saying, "Wow, this class sounds awesome! Look at all the amazing and important readings and shit!" I'm really going to end up saying, "Wow, this class sounded awesome... but look at all the readings...shit."