Me, getting out of my subaru forester in the middle of the road, wearing a plaid button up with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, mid-thigh shorts, and hiking boots, helping a turtle across the road: I wonder why this entire town thinks I'm a lesbian.
I'm going on a five day trip to New Jersey with friends and my Dad texted me this morning before he left for work. He's never been super affectionate, so it's the little things.
Hunting monsters was what he did since he was little, making him one of the lucky few that was more prepared for a mess like this. Still, it didn’t make the situation any more enjoyable. He still had to fight to live every single day, there were still people out there that he couldn’t save, but his own survival was more important. Helping others was what he did, but he couldn’t help anyone if he was dead. Baekhyun was out on another supply run, hoping to add more to his collection before time dragged on and made things even more scarce. Securing the house went smoother than he thought, but once he was ready to leave the sound of creaking floorboards instantly had him raising his gun. Feather light footsteps brought him closer to the door’s opening, lowering the weapon when he saw it was just another human. Tilting his head to the side the male tried to gauge just how wary he should be. Zombies were dangerous, but that didn’t mean his own kind weren’t just as deadly.
“There’s nothing left here. Search it yourself if you want but I’m telling you it’s a waste of time. You’d better just get out of here before one of those things wander in here again.”
Michonne's footsteps were light on the warped wooden floor of the house. She would have been silent had it not been for a squeaky floorboard. When the noise broke the silence, she groaned inwardly and tensed, listening for a response from within the aging structure. Although there was nothing, she had the feeling that she may not be alone, so her hand remained on the grips of her katana strapped to her back.
Her sense was confirmed by the appearance of another human, nearly startling her. She took a moment to assess the situation. He didn't look like he was lying about the lack of supplies, but, even if he was, any supplies here would now be in his bag. Supply stealing wasn't high on her list of things she wanted to do today.
"Thanks for the heads up," she said, relaxing her posture. "Any luck at other places in the area?"
dada was a largely european art movement that took place after wwi. this time and place is not a coincidence. let me explain.
dada art made no sense. the artists who made dada lived in a world in which nothing made sense - in which conventional logic led to the senselessness of a world war. so, making art that made no sense, making - well, you can’t really call it art, so making ANTI-art that rejected the conventions that brought about that atrocity in the first place - it made total sense. (if that makes any sense.)
so the artists did weird things. new things! putting things that were already made together and calling it sculpture, cutting up bits of pictures and putting them together and calling that something to frame - this site has some nice examples.
but from my perspective - there’s serious intellectual continuity between the absurdity of attaching a bunch of tacks to the bottom of an iron, rendering it useless, and say…. bath bomb posts. Put a fucking macbook in a bath. it’s useless now. Nobody fucking cares anymore. you want something funny? you want a punchline? gun. that’s your punchline. Take it. I am laughing
in a way it could be a method of venting some of the frustration and hopelessness and dissatisfaction that tumblr’s userbase (largely, disenfranchised millennials) feels in the modern day. I can’t really speak for anyone else, but… at least from a US perspective, there’s plenty to be disillusioned about. growing up in a constant state of questionably justified war, income inequality, an economic recession caused by the actions of a handful of wealthy fucks who didn’t even get properly punished, growing awareness of police brutality, being called lazy and self-absorbed by the generations that gave us these problems in the first place… I can’t help but think that these factors (and more) could produce a similar mindset to the one that precipitated the first dada movement.
so of COURSE we make nonsense jokes. it’s a coping mechanism for a world which doesn’t make any sense.
related: this isn’t by tumblr but I have to plug UCLA’s atrocity of a virtual gallery once more. it really needs to be experienced, but… it’s definitely also millennial neo dada. from the presentation (like an unplayable video game) to the content (THE DOGS HAVE ARRIVED), it is exactly what I am talking about. it is a fucking shitpost. and it’s high art, too! I love this
tl;dr: my generation is fed up with this bullshit, and the best way that we can express that is by shitposting. alternatively, dada was an early precursor to modern shitposting and we should all thank duchamp for signing a fucking urinal
I’d also say that while Dadaism was obsessed with the technological aspects of Modernity, of newspapers, of industrial mechanics and factory made clocks, neo-dadaism (of which shitposting but also the increasingly broad reach of the New Aesthetic and net aesthetics) is obsessed with the technological aspects of our time, or at the beginning of our time.
As just a comparison, the Clock in Absurdist and Dadaist art is both a symbol of the uplifting beginning of industrial relations (as one of the first complicated machines made by manufacturers, as the symbol of mankind’s ability to triumph and analyze nature and better ourselves) and as the deified symbol of horrific modernity (of demarcated time, labor hours, the oppression of the working class via managerial time), Neo-Dadaism/Absurdism has a similar relationship with early computers, which both symbolizes the utopian attitudes which we entered the digital age with, and the horrifying period we live in now, where the Digital is ever present and semi-deified.
My favorite dada satire is probably from Georges Grosz who takes the kind of robotic modernist tube people of folks like Leger:
and turns them into these mindlessly patriotic broken automatons chanting rote phrases:
And it’s so so funny to me that there’s all kinds of Gen X artists out there creating art about the millennials on their damn cellumar phones who think they’re the inheritors of this aesthetic but really it’s people who use the Madden gif generator to shitpost because they’re taking the technology meant for a coherent purpose for a particular narrative and they’re breaking it and turning it back on itself.
Calling on his trusty gritty discipline to suppress his unsteadiness, Dean glanced down at the canned item approaching his right boot before cutting a no-nonsense gaze sideways to meet the woman’s. He slowly took a deep breath, steeling himself through the sudden dizziness he felt as if his wound had chosen this clearly auspicious moment to start throbbing.
The possibility that this other survivor could be one of the good ones left gave him the impetus to soften his posture, but not withdraw his fingers from the gun.
Don’t be stupid, Dean. She could pull a fast one on you yet.
The chastisement was in his father’s voice: John Winchester was a strict, leery man who would never win father of the year award, but who most definitely programmed Dean to be vigilant, always. The stern man by no means had raised his boys to be functional and well-adjusted, always enforcing Dean’s self-worth to be tied up in how well taken care of Sammy was, but at least the elder Winchester had helped Dean hone his skepticism in people, making the hunter well aware of how easy it was for someone to fuck you over, how easy it would be for anyone to just take anything and everything away from you.
And goddamnit, while we’re at it, just a reminder what a fuckery of a job you’ve done in keeping your brother safe-
Dean exhaled himself out of the castigating reverie just as the can reached the tip of his brown leather boot.
He lifted his chin in an acknowledgment to the woman who, it didn’t escape him, had postured herself defensively, while remaining her eye contact with Dean, and slow nodded at her words as the can wedged under his boot.
Maybe he could make this work. She seemed… willing enough, but… there was always a chance… The fact was he needed help. And maybe so did she.
Reconciliation would not mollify the tense situation, but his instincts were softening now as he felt lightheaded and took a moment to clear his head.
He wondered if he was too woozy to make it back outside to keep searching for a first aid kit. As the sweat formed over his brows, hell, he wasn’t even sure he knew which direction was which at this point as the fever started to take hold.
He let his hand hang down away from his pistol and managed a small smile.
“Depends on what you are.” He swallowed hard as he considered her.
If you’re a monster of any kind, i’ll have to kill you. “Do… did you happen to find any medical supplies,” He breathed shakily as the throbbing got worse. “I.. -think I’m about to battle some serious infection.” He made a movement to walk forward but immediate vertigo washed over him and Dean ended up slumping against a metal shelf, the can of beans accidentally kicked out under him, a slur of “Fuck” escaping his chapped lips.
Please don’t be a bad person, please.
She could easily take him out right now as he spiraled into fever if that’s what she wanted to do.
“Need some help.” Dean said softly from where he leaned uncomfortably against the shelving
The pain was intense enough to make him scream.
@sacrificesandpie
Mere seconds seemed to stretch into minutes as Michonne waited for the man’s reaction. Her muscles tensed with the situation, ready to bolt, or fight, or react on whatever primal instinct had been passed down from generation to generation with one purpose- to keep them all alive.
The stress of the moment broke as the can rolled under his foot, and Michonne realized what state he was in. He was impaired in some way, from what, she couldn’t tell. Dehydration and starvation were notorious for those symptoms.
But then, his hand moved from his gun, and he let known his state.
Infection. The word set off alarms in her head. If it was infectious, she had to get away. And, if it was the infection...
No. It couldn’t be that. She’d seen those cases up close. The fever, the weakness, the dementia. The skin would burn up, then start to chafe and peel away, leaving the dying with grotesque exposed wounds. How such a terrible thing could exist was beyond her understanding. She’d watched it wreak havoc on the tiniest of bodies, saw the baby fat burn away in a day, watched the perfect innocent face peel and warp until he looked nothing like her or his father. She tried to keep him comfortable, but he was always starving. The hunger...
She couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t let those thoughts close, or risk being trapped in the past with danger in the present. She looked at the man leaning against the shelves and decided two things; he was not infected by the dead, and she was going to make sure he didn’t end up with them anyway.
“I’m gonna help you,” Michonne said, cautiously approaching him. She reached out and held his arm to allow him to sit on the floor without falling.
Once he was no longer at risk of a head injury, she knelt down next to him and began to rummage through her bag. In barely any time at all, she produced a bottle of water and a prescription of Amoxicillin for an Andre Miller. Both water and a dose of the antibiotic were in his hand just as quickly as they’d appeared.
“I’m going to secure this place and see if I can find something to bring down your fever,” she said softly, the prior coldness missing from her voice. “But, I need to know what caused your infection. For both our sakes.”
GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME IT’S 3AM AND I’M LAYING IN BED. fuck you tumblr fuck you I don’t fuxx with spiders. sorry to all of you that now have to endure this cause it is bullshit.
Okay but seriously folks - as often as I joke about this movie stirs my loins and as weirdly popular as this text post got a while back, I wanna rap with you all about why the George of the Jungle remake is a pretty important piece of cinema.
It’s literally the only movie I can think of that is based completely around the unheard of “FEMALE gaze.” Granted, while I’m a huge movie buff I’ve not seen every movie ever made. But even so, even if there’s another example of the “female gaze” in cinema that has escaped me it’s still damn impressive that a kids movie from 1997 based on a Jay Ward cartoon from the 60’s managed to turn gender representation in media on it’s fucking ass!
First things first, let’s look at our leading lady and love interest - Ursula, played by Leslie Mann.
Let me just say that while Leslie Mann is adorable and a talented actress, she does look a little less conventional and a little more plain compared to the bombshells that Hollywood likes to churn out. Leslie, in comparison, looks much more like a real women you’d meet on the street. She dresses pretty conservatively and plain throughout the film ; Wearing outfits that are more functional than fashionable for trekking through the jungle, pulling her hair back and so forth. Not that if she was dolled up and more scantily clad it would give her character any less integrity, but can we appreciate how RARE that is in the male dominated industry of film? Just think about all the roads a film about a woman in the jungle COULD have taken but didn’t - no scenes with her clothes strategically ripped or anything! You can say this is a kids movie, intended for children and that’s why the sensuality of the female lead is so downplayed but there are PLENTY of kids movies that handle women in a very objectifying and sexualized manner despite the target audience is pre-pubescent. Like, a disgusting amount. So I don’t think “it’s a kids movie” is why the film doesn’t take ANY, let alone EVERY, opportunity to showcase the main female character’s sex appeal…
…especially considering the sex appeal of the film rests squarely on the well defined shoulders of our male lead, George of the Jungle played by Brendan Fraser in the best god damn shape of his life!
*Homer Simpson Drooling Noises*
Whenever members of the reddit community try to compare the sexualization of women in fiction to the design of characters such as Batman and Superman, I always want to just sit them down and show them this movie. Because THIS is what the female sexual fantasy looks like, and Batman and Superman are male power-fantasies. Look at him - his big blue eyes, his soft hair, his lean, chiseled physique built for dexterity rather than power. He’s wild and free, but gentle. It’s like he fell right out of that steamy romance novel your mom tried to hide from you growing up.
Hell, the whole plot seems to be designed around how damn hot he is! First, for the majority of the film, he wears only a small strip of cloth to cover the dick balls and ass. Everything else is FAIR GAME to drool over for 40 minutes. Then, after he meets Ursula she takes him with her to San Francisco just so we can enjoy him in a well-tailored suit (as seen in the gif set), running around in an open and billowy shirt along side horses while Ursula and all of her friends literally crowd around and make sexual comments about him, and my personal favorite, ditch the loincloth entirely and have him walk around naked while covering his man-bits with various objects while one of Ursula’s very lucky friends oogles him and makes a joke along the lines of “So THAT’S why they call him the ‘KING of the Jungle’…”
And yes, it’s also a very cute and funny little movie. Out of all the movies based on Jay Ward cartoons, it was the most faithful to the fast-paced humor and wit of the original source material (yes even the new Peabody and Sherman movie which honestly I thought was too cutesy-poo.) But that’s not why this movie is popular with the gay community or why we all became women in 1997. It’s just really cool that there’s a film out there where the sensuality of the female form takes a back seat for the oiled up, chiseled, physique of Brendan Fraser (in his prime that is)
One thing to add: in the scene mentioned above where the ladies are watching him in the billowy shirt running with the horses, it pans back to about 50 feet away to two guys in suits at this party looking at the women and one of the guys says, “Man, what is it with women and horses?” So not only does this movie highlight the female gaze, but it blatantly points out that western male sensibilities don’t have a clue what actually appeals to women.
as mentioned above, he looks built for dexterity rather than power, but he’s still a 6+ foot tall extremely muscular man, and not once are you worried for Ursula when he’s with her
let’s take a look at his rival - Lyle is a cravat-wearing trust-fund kid (who, interestingly, is into Ursula’s fortune more than her, which kind of makes this a gender-swapped gold-digger thing too). He’s blonde and Ursula’s mom LOVES him. He’s more uncomfortable and less prepared to cope with the jungle than Ursula is, in his pastels and shiny shoes.
But he talks over Ursula, insists he knows what’s best for her, ignores her autonomy. In spite of the fact that Lyle Van de Groot is a rich, educated, social climber who cares deeply about his clothing and appearances he is a point-by-point checklist of unhealthy masculinity in a way that beefy, inarticulate, uneducated George could never be. Ursula is off on her own doing her own thing and Lyle hires two FUCKING POACHERS to track her down in the middle of the jungle while she’s working (or on vacation? It’s never made clear because he interrupts her before she can explain why she went on the expedition). Lyle ignores the local guides, claiming his experience with a bridge in Maui means the bridge they’re on is safe - which leads to a significant injury for one of the guides. He then tells Ursula the guides are conspiring against him, trying to make himself and his poachers seem safe and the Africans who make up the rest of their party seem dangerous.
Check that body language! A post above points out that we’re never worried about Ursula when she’s around George. That’s because Lyle talks to her like this. Look at his aggressive lean! Look at him literally looking down at her! She’s tilted away from him in the least threatening position possible and he’s so aggressive about whatever point he’s making. When he finds her after he pushed her toward a damned lion he kisses her and she pushes him away. Want a textbook example of gaslighting? Here you go: she says “don’t get all smoochy with me! I remember what happened with that lion” and he responds “What are you talking about? I was fighting that lion the whole time - you were just so terrified you don’t remember.” Then he shoots George! And then he kidnaps Ursula and attempts to force her into marriage!
Now look at how George and Ursula interact (slightly NSFW):
Even though he’s a big strong dude and he thinks he’s doing what’s okay he lets her set the tone for their interactions. He accepts that he’s out of his wheelhouse and even if he doesn’t understand it he does what she says is culturally appropriate. He learns from her! He listens to her! Compare Lyle leaning into Ursula above to this image of George and Ursula talking:
He’s listening to her, all of his attention is on on her, but he’s totally nonthreatening. His torso is turned toward her but he’s not invading her space, his hands are clasped, he’s smiling, and she’s the one leaning into him. Look at that smile she has, look how happy she is to be listened to. Her posture in both images is vulnerable but in this one with George she’s vulnerable because she has chosen to share with him instead of because she feels threatened.
When George rescues Ursula from Lyle at the end of the film it isn’t a typical damsel situation - George doesn’t have a knock-down-drag-out fight with Lyle, he swings into a tree and offers Ursula a hand so she can reach up and save herself (and before he does it he acknowledges how much it’s going to hurt and *whimpers* and looks human and scared). And you’ve gotta remember that George rescues everybody. It’s not just Ursula - he also rescues a parasailer and gets shot rescuing Shep and Ape. He just likes helping, dammit!
AND this movie offers a perfect counter to the “nice guy” thing - Ursula starts engaged to a jerk who her mom thinks is a “nice guy” the moves on to actual nice man George who isn’t *just* nice - he’s also patient, listens to her, has his own skills and talents, is okay with being goofy, has his own social circle and isn’t totally dependent on Ursula, and looks amazing. Ursula doesn’t go with George just because he’s a *nice* guy who rescued her from an asshole, Ursula goes with George because he’s an interesting, fun person who is supportive of her different way of being an interesting, fun person. AND he’s emotionally available. Google image search George of the jungle and see how many smiles you can find, see how many open looks of confusion there are, see how much sadness you can see in George’s face. Now look for images of Lyle. His two expressions are a smirk and cartoonish fear. I know this is a cartoonish kid’s movie, but it is SO powerful that the hero shares his emotions while the villain masks every emotion but fear. Lyle doesn’t want to open up, he doesn’t want to be vulnerable, he wants CONTROL. George wants to learn, to protect people he cares about, to explore new places, to laugh when he’s happy and to be sad when he’s sad, and that he does that while being a broad-shouldered, physically powerful dude who is NOT totally self-involved is just…
Like, look, I didn’t sign on to tumblr dot com for George of the Jungle discourse, but I’m just now realizing that this movie may have done the most for destroying my conception of stoic masculinity and gender roles as a child.
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