@OldSpice #OldSpice: why I began to lose the love...

For those that follow me on Twitter you'll know that I spent a tonne of time the last two days watching and commenting on the genius advertising campaign that Old Spice produced using their frontman, Isaiah Mustafa. It was a comprehensive web-based project, using YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, whilst also trolling reddit, diggit, YahooAnswers, yedda.com and by keeping a weather eye on posts/articles on various websites. There must have been a band of industrious search engine machinists keeping track of the references and picking the best for comedic writing opportunities. The popularity of the whole enterprise even made other organisations join in: Starbucks, Gillette, Twitter, EW, biz, Huffington Post, G4TV, NHLBlackhawks, GQ, etc. Lots of celebrities joined in: Alyssa Milano, Christina Applegate, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Ellen DeGeneres, etc. Then there were the thousands of ordinary folks who commented on the three main sites. Plus Isaiah himself got a video response and his daughter, Hayley, too! Reddit helped build an answer machine message maker using Isaiah's contributions.


I was going to write a quick post about how these were all brilliant. That they were helping to produce a new masculinity, a new male identity. One that recognises the cultural power of the patriarchy and the stereotypes of strong, slightly dim, bragging men being the preferred partner for legions of women. They were playing it so tongue-in-cheek. Deliberately using nonsensical/incorrect language constructions to show that OSMan wasn't too nerdy/knowledgeable. Recounting all the heroic tales of extreme endurance activities. Reminding everyone that the main purpose of the product, the Old Spice body wash range, was to attract ladies, obviously.


I thought it clever that whilst superficially supporting these stereotypes (who doesn't want to have a ripped, charming man offer to bake you cakes and ride horses with you? Even the most stalwart of lesbians can appreciate toned abs and the promise of apple or peach pies), it was also subverting them by deliberately making a mockery of them. Just as the other television adverts had done. If it had been too serious, it would have come off badly. Just as P.Diddy has managed to keep just this side of obnoxious in his Ciroc advertisements based on his smoothness, there was a fresh take on a hackneyed trope.


However, there were a few too many references to things that I was starting to think were a bit sexist and homophobic. Either the writers were getting tired, or they weren't being as careful with their language as they should have been. Eye on the ball, people. Engage your audience; don't alienate a market segment that just may spend a tonne of money on your products (clean-cut gay men, holla! Ladies who buy soap for their men because if they didn't they'd just use water and never be clean!). Singing happy birthday isn't within the range of a studmuffin, it would not work for the theme, and who knows, maybe Isaiah can't sing. But don't say that other men would laugh at male singers and say it is a lady thing to do. Plus the producers took their own sweet time to acknowledge that women might want to use the products, too. Did they embrace a butch army and welcome them? Saying that the more mighty warriors available for protection of Mount Olympus, the better? Or that Old Spice Man would be running recruitment sessions for all those that believed they had the tenacity to withstand a lion pride? No, they warned that ladies would get man-hair...and if they ever did smell like Old Spice it would be from rolling around with said-fragranced men.


Maybe I've had a sense of humour bypass. I watched all the videos - there were 96 according to the Twitter log - maybe all that overt masculinity was getting a bit much and I forgot it was meant to be wry irony. It was a drip-drip feed of over-the-top testosterone and it had me floored.


Now, I'd love CollegeHumour.com to copycat the style and have a bunch of dykes talking about the benefits of using Old Spice. No, there is no need to have them topless in just a towel... Maybe they can recruit the ladies who were in the Lez Chat clip: "recycling and cuddling are important to me"!

Thursday Lite Bite!

Lots of lovely links:

Cynthia Nixon's Australian interview about motherhood (@Babble.au)

Boys in colourful underwear beat the recession blues (@DailyMail)

An amazing opportunity for woman anywhere in the world to attend a conference in the USA and get a scholarship to do so. Women & Power: Connecting Across the Generations, a conference to be held September 11-13, 2009.

Alex@Bilerico's report on new femme book plus a chance to win a copy of the book if you follow them on Twitter!

A fascinating map of the latest web trends laid out through a copy of the Tokyo subway map- it lists the latest significant people and places on the Internet...

I don't know how this escaped my notice but British boy band Boyzone released a music video showing a gay band member in a romantic clinch with a...man! Hurrah! See this link to watch the video - the link is from the kiddies' section of the BBC news site - progressive, eh?

Oh, I couldn't resist: Scotland's #1 male Barbie? This Aberdonian fellow is all kinds of special! The link takes you to a BBC3 video excerpt and it is fabulous!

If I have not already advised you to check out the new super-terrific e-zine for intellectual queer types, then I have been extremely remiss... Polari is smart, funny, cultural, beautifully designed, easy to navigate, with quick loading times and great links. You must read it, and join their facebook fan page!

Queeries for Queeroes

So another question for the LGBTQ community...
Do lesbians who indulge in fisting find childbirth easier as a result?

...and the usual Sunday Serving of Surflinks...

• Check out Tom Robinson's fab website: he is a queer man who ended up marrying a woman and having babies with her, but remains solidly promoting LGBTQ pride and resistance through his awesome music. His website kindly allows free downloads of his tunes for the sensible reason that ("iTunes downloads cost 79p per track. Writer/publisher get 6p, Performer 6-8p, Visa/Mastercard 7p, Apple 12p, and Record Company almost 50p. Sod that. Help yourself to my songs & share them with your friends") - make sure you play 'Glad to be Gay' at every queer event you attend - too often there is such dispiritedness as a result of constant battles with prejudice that queer events can feel a bit angry, isolationist and overly-political. Sometimes we just want to be really, you know, gay - - as in happy! As Dana's brother, Howie, said at GayPride on The L Word: I mean (shouting to the crowd) be gay, be proud everybody! (The crowd roars back.)

Sing if you're glad to be gay
Sing if you're happy that way, hey
(Tom Robinson lyrics)

• Really interesting session at WAM2009 called In/Out of Focus, Broadening a Feminist Lens: Gender, Non-Conformity and the Media, which you can follow on twitter...
• If you don't laugh, you'd cry...Papal condoms!
• Volunteers needed for a worthy event: Bi Health 2009
• Also, for those wanting more help in their activism schemes, you might want to apply to Soulforce...
• For major fans of Riese and crew (like me!) become a fan of Autostraddle's new facebook page!
• Oh, and Towleroad has an awesome listing - check THEM ALL OUT!
  
• Therese Szymanski, who is completely fabulous, has a lively blog and an excellent website writes fantastic queer, women-oriented fiction. Having been given the book of erotica 'Tall in the Saddle', I thought I would share a quotation from her story which I thought equally hilarious and accurate!

"You know I can't let let you go back there now."
"I don't want to."
"So what do we do?"
Billy held Elise tight with one arm while her other caressed her hair, then the full length of her back, stopping only to cup her full, shapely ass. "We've got horses. Can you ride?"
"Hell, yes, I can ride."
"So we got us horses, a treasure map, and the rest of out lives. What's say we go for it?"
Elise rolled Billy onto her back, ripped open her shirt, and said, "Start speaking proper English, stop acting stupid, and let me see you as you really are and we might have a deal."
Little did Billy know that Elise was practically defining butch/femme relations for the next century with that single move.
Therese Szymanski, The Life and Times of Ornery Crazy Mean Bad Bill, 2007

I'm a bit surprised how much I loved the story and then I realised it was because it felt safe, mirroring the heteronormative lines of romance stories I have seen, read and heard since I was a child. The protagonists are a man (who is really a woman, but who dresses, acts and names herself in the masculine style) and a woman who live together, eventually have a child (adopted) and reconcile with the estranged family members who are just fine with their alternative lifestyle choices. Did I really feel more comfort in reading familiar stories with a queer take for queer women, or is it ingrained in humans to have that sort of same+other relationship, rather than same+same? More introspection needed...


On the idea of introspection, I was in the bath finishing TL&ToOCMBadBill, when I realised in all my roles where I have been the boss, I have never felt comfortable in charge of women who were physically bigger than me. At 5'8 and 8stone it is hard to find employees smaller than myself, but more importantly what does it mean about my self image and ability to be the strong woman in charge yet physically weaker? The same goes for women I want to date - they are all similar in physique. Either I am so egotistic that I can only fancy people of similar body-shapes, or I think the men in my life should be bigger than me (men are the protector, tall and imposing like my father) and that the women in my life should be smaller than I (women are delicate and need protecting like my mother). This might be linked to the idea that I prefer to date younger women (I cannot get down with well-used puss, or wrinkly flesh, post-birth bodies, etc. - maybe I worry that they have diseases if they have been about a bit). I would prefer a young virgin, then any mistakes in bed would be ignored (what does that say about my bedroom confidence?) and we could learn to love one another together rather than having to show off one's skills. At 28, younger lovers are realistically going to be 18-28, anything younger really feels gross and paedophilic. Yet I also sought young inexperienced male partners, I had a plan to hang about seminaries, young, men, probably virgins learning to be vicars, looking for a wife - I could be a real hit! Do I seek to help out at queer LGBTQ youth events because I am experienced in working with youngsters, or is it that I think there might be a potential gf there for me? Weird... I think there might be something Freudian in this...

And this is the future...

So, this is the first day post-mourning, grieving period over - it will be colourful clothes from now on - and productivity...

Firstly, some superior links:

Thai autistic boy is saved by Spiderman from a window ledge (@DailyMail)

Alienated when surrounded by chums up to their eyes in sibling squabbles? Then the website beinganonly.com is for you - there is even a conference for only children - plus Kathryn Flett's article.

A great discovery: a natty wee blog about asexuality: http://thereisnocloset.blogspot.com/

Totally agree: 'What Rolling Stone and the Abstinence-Only Movement Have in Common'

Femme's of Power (the book) and other literary delights are ably discussed in Bookslut's fantastic article

Cartographic Crush

How have I lived so long on this wonderful planet having never heard of lovemaps before?

Also from WIKIPEDIA:

Genderfuck is a politics of identity stemming from the identity politics movements of the 1950s and 1960s, a guiding principle of which is the idea that the personal is political.^[3]

The term dates at least to 1979, when an article by Christopher Lonc, entitled "Genderfuck and Its Delights", appeared in the magazine Gay Sunshine. Lonc wrote "I want to criticize and poke fun at the roles of women and of men too. I want to try and show how not-normal I can be. I want to ridicule and destroy the whole cosmology of restrictive sex roles and sexual identification."^[4]

and...^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Faeries}

Genderbending films!

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Victoria}

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_and_Carla}

Ooh, and one for the calendar: Gay Shame ...goes girly!

One more for the road...

Beautiful unisexual photographs from a talented Parisienne...

Genderfork: The place to absorb and question - rather like pomoworld, but mellower... Though saying that, check out their Dance Party video!

Bugis have a fascinating five gendered societal spectrum... check out the video

Such gender non-conformity is finding favour in traditionally conservative China...

Suprising things

Some surprising things:

Michael Winner's article about him working as Santa then crying.

After a fight someone takes a major dump in their beloved's bathroom before a planned luxurious soak - when they knew damn well that they were going to be using the room for an extended period for relaxation.

The fact that my usually long nails have been mysteriously breaking which to me is a mythical sign that lesbo-action is on the cards.

That I was the only femme at the ylaf (apart from the organiser's girlfriend) - long hair, long nails and short skirts - and why shaven female heads signal illness, dykeness and madness...

How my chocolate advent calendar is not a paragon of equality and justice: the cracker shaped chocs are narrow and no deeper or greater in any other quality/quantity (see website above for multitude options of such), than the other shapes which are in general bigger and thus more chocolaty... I think this might be a perverse lesson in restraint, being grateful for what one has, etc.