Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Ponderings...

A bitch appreciates all of the migraine advice! This bitch finally made an appointment to see a doctor and now my ass will have specific shit to discuss…fantabulous!

Anyhoo…

A bitch has been fascinated by the response to my King Kong post. It has provided a good distraction for a bitch during this time of real world drama!

ABB’s Ponderings Regarding Some Responses to the Post de Kong…

The 'why doesn’t that black bitch know her place' response…
This one just makes a bitch giggle. It centers on the responder's disgust that this bitch would even DARE criticize King Kong! A few even tossed in that a bitch may actually be a racist…that a bitch is foaming at the mouth with irrational rage and that this bitch is making all liberals look bad.

Gawd…doesn’t that just crack you up? Fantabulous indeed!

Well, anyone who knows a bitch or reads my blog knows that this bitch totally knows my place…and that would be anywhere my black ass wants to be. Just wanted to clarify.

A racist…um, no (in my best Andy Warhol).

Next!

Foaming at the mouth…um, no.

Next!

Making all liberals look bad…um, no!

Thanks…that was fun.

The 'when is a movie just a movie' response...
A movie is just a movie when a movie is just a movie. King Kong is an insult wrapped up in a multi-million dollar media blitz. If you want to ignore that insult because you’re just dying to see Kong fight an iguana…go with Gawd…

…but the story still stinks on ice and there aren’t enough digital iguanas on Earth or in Middle Earth to change that.

The 'you must hate white people' response...
Hush…just imagine the emotional damage you’re doing to all the white people in this bitch’s world! You just hush!

A bitch hates bullshit, assholes, oppression, movies that extend the shelf life of bullshit and the smell of Jeri Curls. Okay, my ass hates some other shit, but those things are high on the list.

This bitch does not hate on the basis of race.

Soooooo, if you are hated by a bitch…well, it must be that you are either a bullshit spewing asshole, you oppress my ass, you made a movie that extended the shelf life of tired assed bullshit or you haven’t let go of that curl!

Mmmmkay…that horse is dead.

Note to the chil'ren.
A bitch plans to dabble in the Dungeon of Bitchitude tonight, so visit tomorrow for a summary of a bitch’s ruthless correction…

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has anyone, in the context of this discussion, brought up the fact that the original KK echoes many of the themes of that racist ur-classic "Birth of a Nation"?

Just wondering.

Anonymous said...

Migraine advice: If you have a problem with vomiting with your migraines, try Imitrex nasal spray (you need a doctor's rx to get it). It's expensive, so see if your insurance covers it first. I usually start puking when I get a migraine, so I can't take any pills because I can't keep them down. The Imitrex nasal spray has saved my life. Good luck. I feel your pain.

Anonymous said...

1st: ABB has only had kind things to say to this "white" boy from the sticks when she's replied to my comments via e-mail. And ABB has only left kind comments on my blog. This "white" boy also knows he is not the only "white" person ABB extends her kindness too. So I have to agree with that confirmation that ABB is NOT a racist.

2nd: I never thought of KK in that way. Come to think of it, there are scores of other movies that adopt the same subtle theme.

3rd: Migraines? Lawd have mercy! My sincerest empathies, ABB. I'm glad for the advice for you ABB, and I have one more thing to add after seeing your recent fantabulous picture. If it's been longer than six months, perhaps a visit to the optometrist to make sure your prescription hasn't changed is an order. Something as simple as that can cause devastating headaches.

Many well-wishes for you, ABB!

AOB said...

Love the hate list.....

Bwa hahahahahahah

Kirsten said...

Hi ABB,

Delurking to say that I completely agreed with your take on KK and find it sad that there are folks who just won't see what's right in front of them.

There is hope though--my own eye-opening came many years ago when reading Tarzan for a lit. class, so I know it's possible for the clueless to become cluefull. Hopefully your post did that for some folks.

Keep up the good work and Amen on the flannel pjs!

Hammer said...

ABB!

This progressive puritan thinks you rock! He also thinks you should come to CAMP tonight for the STL Food Not Bombs meeting!

Peace chica!

Hammer

Anonymous said...

I never liked the movie, but I always thought it was because of the way he died in the end. I saw Kong as a classic Exotic Other, taken against his will and put into a hostile, alien environment for the entertainment of the dominant culture. Much like the "wild Indians" who were trotted out for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, tragicomically like Peter Boyle's monster in Young Frankenstein, maybe like the white tiger who finally decided he'd had enough of Siegfried and Roy's bullshit--Kong was unable to meet the impossibly romanticized requirements set by his captors, lashed out in response, and was destroyed as a result.

I haven't thought much about the symbolism in the film since I was a kid (the deLaurentiis remake), and at the time my responses to it were largely framed in terms of the Native American issues that occupied a lot of my reading. Now that you point them out, of course, the racist and sexist overtones are inescapable, and I'm kind of embarassed that I didn't come up with them on my own.

On the migraine front, ask your doc about Relpax. It's the only thing that works for me (and don't waste your cash on Excedrin Migraine if you already have regular Excedrin lying around the house--it's the exact same stuff, just different labels and the bastards trying to wring more money out of you).

Joolya said...

When I was a kid I always thought Jeri Curls was "Cherry Curls" (it smelled kind of like fake fruit scent . . . ) so I had all kinds of jokes about "Grape Curls" and "Watermelon Curls" which, in retrospect, didn't make any sense and people must've thought I was crazy . . .
Anyway. Migraines suck. Caffeine is key. Do you get overly sensitive to smells, by any chance? Or I am actually crazy?

Anonymous said...

There the ABB goes again, pointing her responses at general, caricaturized versions of what was actually said. ABB, if you can't actually address the counter-arguments people make, why do you bother responding at all? At least be honest when you respond.

To wit: The main problem with your analysis of King Kong is that you are assuming that the gorilla represents a black man. That is a huge assumption, and even if YOU see a black man, that doesn't mean anybody else does (subconsciously or otherwise). It has been said that the artist's intention is irrelevant, which I think is bullshit, but even if it is, you can be sure that most of the kids who saw King Kong did not think of him as a black guy. I saw both the 1933 and 1976 versions as a lad, and if you'd told me there was a subtext about taboos of miscegenation or whatever, I would have thought you were weird. Now, as a grown up, I still don't see it. I think you're projecting your own prejudices onto the movie, and you're doing this in a completely unnecessary way.

Now, granted, the new movie isn't any good. There are some impressive scenes but the story just doesn't come together. But that said, I still don't think it has anything to do with black men. Why do you have to interpret it this way? You have failed to defend your insistence on this interpretation. There is a very simple counter-argument to your entire diatribe, which is this: Gorillas are the only animals from the wild that would function in a story about a woman falling in love with a monster that is discovered during an expedition. There's a long tradition of "misunderstood loves" or "impossible loves" in horror and fantasy movies, including Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, and other tales where the male is hideous or otherwise incapable of fitting into the proper role. Why should "King Kong" be singled out as racist when it belongs to this tradition?

What other animal would have prevented you from coming to your conclusions? Would a giant tiger have met your approval? How about a giant macaque? Why do you impose your fantasy of trenchant societal racism on such a simple little monster story? What purpose does this serve other than to stretch your interpretive imagination?

This isn't about you being oversensitive, or blatantly racist yourself, or whatever other accusations you defended yourself against. This is about you failing to own up to the severe limitations of your analysis, and admit that you are seeing things that might not really be there. Or at least that definitely aren't there for the majority of people who view the film, and probably aren't there for the people who devised the film.

What will it take for you to be honest with your readers about this?

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