Perhaps attending Folsom has left me with masked couples clad in leather on the brain, but I can't help but notice the similarities between hero/sidekick relationships and many other M/m relationships, like dynamics commonly found in BDSM or the pederasty of Ancient Greece, among others. While the immediate knee-jerk reaction to this concept is “well, duh, of course sidekicks are gay, just look at Batman and Robin”, at some point I have to take my “queer pop culture critic slash blogger” hat off and concede that some superheroes are straight, and unambiguously so, in defiance of our hopes and dreams. However, the issues and elements present in the male hero/male counterpart relationship are, while far from unique to comic books, increasingly relevant to the queer community in an age where (heteronormative) socially acceptable male bonding consists of sports and going into the woods to shoot up the Happy Tree Friends.

To clarify, these comparisons are not meant to degrade, demean, or defibrilate the sidekick archetype. I'm a fan of sidekicks. In fact, I'm all for superheroes having them, because I feel an extensive support team enables a hero to actually carry his own title and not have to rely on every tragically-conceived crossover circle jerk to establish themselves as a fixture in the label. But enough about Civil War, Infinite Crisis, World War Hulk, and whatever they pass off as an Avengers film. It's time to pontificate!

With few exceptions (most notably The Tick's Arthur, whose only similarity to the epononymous crimefighter is a propensity for insect cosplay), a sidekick will have similar traits and abilities as the hero, albeit slightly inferior (convenient, as much of their career involves being overpowered or kidnapped by the villain). Through experience and mentoring, the sidekicks can evolve into their own heroic identities (i.e. Aqualad becoming Tempest) or take up the mantle of their former master (i.e. Kid Flash becoming The Flash).

In either case, the mentorship, support, and discpiline of the older, more mature hero is necessary in facilitating the upbringing of the younger, more naïve counterpart. This is consistent with the purpose of Ancient Greek pederasty, where it was believed that an older lover could influence the amount of success available to a young boy. Mentoring is also a function of many D/s relationships, especially those that are M/m, in which the Dom/Top/Master/Daddy is often idealized by the sub/bottom/slave/boy to be a proper example of masculine force deserving of respect and worship. Also, while we're on the topic, it's interesting to note that a lot of a sidekick's duties are really degrading. When they're not tied to a chair in a booby-trapped warehouse, they can be found washing the car, testing the gadgets and other unpleasant tasks that the hero is too busy pensively reminiscing about the life he left behind to worry himself with. No, that sort of domestic work is left to the sidekick, not only because it builds character, but because apprenticing under such an illustrious hero is a privilege. Any sub who finds gratification and satisfaction in blacking their Dom's boots knows what I'm talking about. I hope.

Sometimes, the pursuit of justice forces its agents to alienate themselves from friends and family. Other times, the villain kills their family and spares them the trouble. It is not unusual for sidekicks to live with their heroes as their wards, providing company, service, and assistance in exchange for room, board, and support (be it financial, emotional, capturing the guy who killed their parents, etc).

In these situations, the sidekick's plight is very similar to that of a “kept boy/man” (for a more literal example, see Chuck and Evan from Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in all the World), if you substitute “fighting injustice” with “having sex that Mark Sanford doesn't want you to have”. I'm sure if you were really good at what you did you could do both of these at the same time. In the 40's-era of Batman's heyday, Dick and Bruce actually slept in the same room (or bed, those pictures leave it rather ambiguous). Unlike “kept” arrangements, however, sidekicks remain fiercely loyal, emotionally and otherwise, to their former mentor/guardian/benefactors, a bond that often outlasts other romantic and social relationships, which is consistent with Greek ideals, where male friendship was often more valued than marriage.

Like a kept boy or eremonos of antiquity, the sidekick's tenure is often as brief as it is beneficial. Batman's gone through five Robins (and six Batgirls), Green Arrow had Speedy and Connor, and there have been three Kid Flashes, two who have went on to become The Flash. The “masked teenager” novelty wears off as you grow older, and eventually you'll have to be your own hero, replace your predecessor, or die valiantly in the process of A or B. There is the option of going rogue and arching your former partner, but that rarely ever pans out. Just ask, well, anyone who's ever tried it.

This is not merely a comic book convention (wait, what?) arbitrarily enforced for the sake of tradition, but really just an honest illustration on the nature of relationships. They break up, sometimes because one or more parties have simply outgrown it. Even the tightest and most committed partnerships sever and dissolve. FetLife and CollarMe are full to bursting with subs and slaves and Doms and Masters who thought they had something concrete, something solid to hold on to. And while the eremonos might remain close friends with his former older lover, few continued to make love with their erastes after they had reached adulthood. Bruce Wayne really loved Dick Grayson, but eventually they both had to move on. Beautiful as it was while it lasted, it wasn't meant to last forever.

I'm going to avoid writing any “observation of queer life vs heteronormative life” checks that my mere BA in Art ass can't cash, but I will say, as a queer, as a trans person, as someone who does not have children or religion or some other external factor to tie me to a partner, the stories of Dick Grayson and Speedy speak to me. Three months ago I left my friends and family in Phoenix behind and moved to San Francisco, not because I didn't love them, but because I had to grow in ways they could not facilitate. I might have to do the same with a partner. Multiple ones, even. And no romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon or Gerard Butler is going to stop me.

But this isn't about me (anymore). This is about the lessons and real-life comparisons that queers like myself can take from comic books, because all fiction is based on just a bit of reality. In each and every one of us there is a vigilante who's quest for truth, justice, power, or even love threatens to dominate all of our relations. Or a doe-eyed boy/girl wonder stuck in a death trap waiting to be saved.

It appears that I've strayed away from my original point.

Anyway.

The dynamic duos found in our comic books share many parallels to various types of homosexual relationships found not only within our present-day queer community, but in civilization's history. Do with that knowledge what you will.

You might be asking yourself why I didn't cover any female superheroes and their sidekicks. Well, hole in my theory that I'm addressing after the fact, I wanted to focus on iconic heroes that most people would know, and DC heroes tend to be the best at illustrating tropes and clichés. Unfortunately, many DC heroines are really just female counterparts to the more popular male heroes. The exception to this pattern is Wonder Woman, who is her own heroine. However, I think both Wonder Girls are related to her in some fashion or other, and finding the homoerotic overtones in an issue of Wonder Woman is like looking at Ann Coulter's Adam's apple with a pair of binoculars. Also, many male superheroes have had female sidekicks. And I chose to ignore those because it didn't necessarily fit the theme of my article. I called myself out so you didn't have to.

I also realize that I have yet to cover Marvel in any detail since joining BTB. I promise to fix this by my next comic book article.
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I really hate when people say “I don’t have a problem with gay people but…” That “but” indicates you do. That but has to be the mos aggravating,Most of the time the phrase is followed by things such as “but why do you have flaunt it?” or “it just should not be seen in public” or “I don’t want to see two guys/girls kissing.”

First of all, if by “flaunt” it you mean being a loud, outspoken, angry, queer, than yeah I am. You know why? The closet kills. End of story. As for being seen in public, let’s get real. We’re like VISA, every you want to be. You will see queer folk in public. As for PDA, tell all the straight couples to stop sucking face and I will too, deal? I found this quote by Warren G and it made by blood boil.

"I ain’t against gay people. I’m just against it being promoted to kids...I know people that’s gay. My wife’s got friends that are gay. I got family that’s gay. Cousins and shit. He cool as fuck. He cool as a motherfucker. He’s my homie. I just mean that on some of these TV shows, they got dudes kissing. And kids are watching that shit. We can’t have kids growing up with that...I know it happens, but let’s keep it behind the scenes. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with it if that’s what two dudes wanna do. Cool. But that’s not bring that out into the world, where the kids can see that. We don’t want all the kids doing that. ‘Cause that ain’t how we was originally put here to do. Like I said, I ain’t got no problem with the gays" (Vanity Fair).

As he eludes too, if kids see queer folk TV then OBVISOULY they will be gay. I know that’s how I knew I was gay. *insert sarcasm here* He totally has this gateway theory about being queer. Sorry Warren G, but just because you two guys make out does make you gay. I would have hopped that you would understand that but obviously, by your comments, I am sadly mistaken

So basically as long as we stay in the closet and appear to be non-sexual it’s all good and fine. To bad we are a sexual community. Our sexual identities are constantly on trial and under fire in the media. This is the worst form of homophobia. It’s the kind that kills and hurts our community slowly because 90 percent of the time it’s the people closest to us that say these things so we let it go. One point I want to touch on is this:

‘Cause that ain’t how we was originally put here to do.

Oh yeah sure, you have NO problem with us. This line says it all. Listen here Warren G and everyone else out there who says “I don’t have a problem but”, you do! Let’s own what we say and stop passing off this blatant homophobia as okay. Owning what you say is the first step to admitting that you’re a homophobe. This queer man is sick of hearing it. To my queer family, it’s time to gut check ANYONE who says this.
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Everyone’s passing around that New York Times article about queer youth. It gives a nice reading of the climate for queer youth in schools all over the country. It also has a really cute ending.

But what that strikes me most about the article, the thing that frustrates me so deeply whenever I hear about or witness this kind of activity, is both the local and administrative toleration and support schools give to queer bullying:

“Teachers would never let students say, ‘That’s so black,’ “ says Eileen Ross from the Outlet Program in Mountain View, “but I’ve had teachers look at me like I’m crazy when I suggest that they should say something to a student who says ‘that’s so gay.’ They’ll say, ‘If I have to stop what I’m doing every time a student says that, I won’t have time to teach!”

If you aren’t willing to address this kind of harassment in your school, THEN DON’T BE A TEACHER. There are so many issues in the air with regard to gender and sexuality in schools, and so many of them can be attributed to teachers, administrators and parents turning a blind eye to issues around sexuality.

The instinctual response for many when dealing with youth sexuality is silence; talking about youth sexuality is equated with condoning sexual activity, but obviously this a problematic approach. Setting aside the real fact that children are clearly thinking about their sexuality and becoming sexual beings at a very young age, we have to acknowledge that schools are institutions that live and breathe heterosexuality on a daily basis. Not only are most school curricula indoctrinated by heternormative language and histories, informal schooling administered by school administrators and teachers – athletic offerings, gender segregation, school events (think prom, football games, dances) – routinely and aggressively script behaviors for children about what is acceptable for gender identity, gender roles, and romance (including what kinds of sexual identities are acceptable, how one initiates romantic relationships, how one engages in sexual relationships). If you want a clearer picture of how intensely formative these silent practices can be in schools, read C.J. Pascoe’s Dude, You’re a Fag.

I definitely think that teachers aren’t doing enough to stop queerphobia in schools, but as a grad student at an institution that trains teachers, I also know first hand that these academies dolittle to prepare teachers and staff. So very little. And in the one class I took that focused on gender in schools, I found that some teachers are not only limited in knowledge about gender and queer issues but they are also quite deeply homo- and gender-phobic. I’ve experienced this so much that I wouldn't be surprised if the teachers who are progressive in their approach to dealing with gender and sexuality probably find themselves hard-pressed to actually be effective without getting harped on by other teachers, administrators and parents.

Although most people aren’t outwardly gay-bashing once they’ve become working professionals, their demeanor – the way they describe gay kids in their classes, the way they talk about how they approach issues of gender and sexuality when they come up – reflect that they are a likely source of anxiety for queer youth by condoning such aggression towards queer kids in and outside schools. Sometimes the most frightening and damaging activity in our communities is caused by silence – either the things we are afraid to talk about with our peers and with kids, or things we aren’t even aware that we’re doing that marginalize students. And no, this isn’t just about queer issues. It’s time to advocate for schooling with the intent to welcome difference.
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I realize this is an old debate (in that feminist years ago spent countless hours weeding through it all), but I want to share some thoughts about rape education.

The reality is that residential colleges – especially U.S. residential colleges – are ripe for sexual assault and rape. The reasons for this are quite numerous, but I think a quite obvious and important reason why this is an issue is because of laws about alcohol. You see, when it’s illegal to drink alcohol even though it’s cultural practice to drink it at parties in schools, you create unregulated spaces for students. Administrators are given a choice – either heavily police all forms of alcohol consumption, or enforce unspoken rules about when alcohol consumption can be consumed (meaning, it can be consumed unless you get caught).

In college I was involved with a sexual assault and rape prevention group that had an administrative liaison from the school to work with us. We struggled to think of how to do this effectively. Our student body had a pretty conservative and intense gender divide. And at orientation, the men and the women had separate sessions for residential programming (because students lived in single-gender buildings). In a place where gender differentiation is at the heart of the community, how do you find a common ground for students to talk about sexual assault and rape?

One interesting attempt to educate has been done by a group called One in Four, a traveling rape education program that largely boasts its “for men by men” program for colleges. I thought this was actually an interesting idea when I was in college and considered applying to work with the group for a period of time. Then I found out that an integral part of their program is showing a video that teaches men to “learn what rape is” via a male-on-male rape situation.

So I get the point. Show people who will probably never in their lives experience a penetrative violation what that could be like. Except the only way to do this, following the logic of sexuality I guess, is by showing male on male rape. While not explicitly gay, the problem here is that as it stands, we see anal sex as the way gay men have sex. It’s hard to explain to some people why gay men might find that offensive – to me, it reads as a stigmatizing way of dealing with the fact (or problem) that straight men generally do not experience sexual penetration. Logistically, if you’re trying to reach out to a group of men that lack education about rape issues, I think it’s pretty likely that they also lack education about gay issues. It feels to me like trying to address one problem at the expense of another.

Anyways, my ramble here is basically summarized in the fact that I think rape is a very serious issue on campuses and in the great beyond, and I think there needs to be some more careful work done to try and address this stuff. I personally think it comes down to evaluating spaces on campus and what kinds of activities are encouraged or discouraged, creating climates that allow men and women to stop seeing themselves as inherently different from one another, and encouraging dialogue of all sorts. Oof.
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Just curious. What constructive advice would you give to the parent of a kid who is gender-variant? Assume they're well-meaning, and just want to try and help their kid be happy. Also assume they're submerged in a typical mainstreamed community with all of its problems for people different from the norm.

It's actually a more challenging question than one might think!


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It must be something in the air: we seem to be having another round of the Great Cisgender Debate. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the question is whether or not it is appropriate to refer to people who are not trans with the term cis, short for cisgender, as trans is short for transgender.

Cis, like trans, is a Latin prefix, and they are essentially antonyms: trans means across, and cis means on the same side. The Romans had provinces named Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul, indicating which side of the Alps they were; and in organic chemistry, the source of the entry of the term cis into gender discourse, they are used to distinguish where chemical bonds are located on a molecule. Cisgendered, then, is the opposite of transgendered.

Trans activists and gender theorists began using the term to correct a troubling lack in the English language: there was no word for somebody that wasn't trans. People are either trans or...something. Not-trans. And makes trans people the exception, rather than simply another form of human diversity. It makes it impossible to talk about people who aren't trans without talking about people who are trans. And all too often, when one group is marked linguistically that way, it become easy to think of people who aren't marked that was a "normal," alienating and even contributing to the oppression or persecution of the marked group.

All of this seems uncontroversial enough: cis serves the same function that "sighted," "hearing," or "able-bodied" serve in discussions of disabled people, or even "straight" versus "gay" does in discussions of sexual orientation. As progressives have striven towards greater and greater inclusion of marginalized groups (including attempting to de-center discussion from privileged groups), it would seem natural that cis would enter the parlance, perhaps as rapidly as "transgendered" has entered the popular imagination (and popular culture.)

And in progressive spaces, this seems to be happening: feminist blogs such as Shakesville, Feminisiting, and Feministe have many examples of cisgendered people using cis to refer to themselves. The problems seem to be happening more often between allies within the LGBT community.

It must be said that some of this resistance stems from the way the term is often used by trans activists. Cis often comes up in discussions of privilege, specifically how feminists or LGB allies are exercising privilege over trans people. Emotions can run high on both sides, and both sides get defensive. It hardly helps trans people to say that cis simply means "not-trans" when it is often coupled with "bigot."

But that in itself should not be enough to suppress the term, or only use it in "approved" spaces, as helen boyd seems to be saying:

"So, yeah. I love it as theory, in classrooms. I teach cisgender & cissexual privilege. But as a cissexual person, I don’t want to be called cis, or cisgender. It’s not my identity. I have lots of genders, but I’m not trans."

Now, I have two issues with this: first, the act of opting out of "cis" when trans people hardly have the option to opt out of "trans" is indeed an exercise in privilege. Even more important, however, is the misperception that cis is an identity, when instead like trans it is merely a descriptive term.

It may seem startling to claim that transgender isn't an identity: after all, isn't that what people say? "I identify as trans." (I say that, for example.) But trans has the characteristics of an identity for the same reasons that being black, or Jewish, or disabled do: because of the oppression, because of the way that it is marked as abnormal, Other. Being called trans tells you nothing about how a person feels about themselves, exactly what their gender is, about how they express it: it only tells you that they have enough variance from their assigned gender that at least some of the time they want to appear to be a different gender.

There is no need to accept a "cisgendered identity," because it isn't one. It doesn't even indicate that there isn't any variance in the person's gender: all it says is that they don't go so far as to identify (even temporarily) as a different gender than they were assigned. So an effeminate gay man can be cisgendered because he always identifies as a man (and indeed, nothing proves this more than the fact that when he stops doing that, we call him something else.)

If trans people have a responsibility to be more judicious in their use of the term, cis people have a responsibility to not conflate cis with an insult as well. Especially given that they are the privileged group in the argument. If we were to buy the argument that the word must be suppressed or limited to academic settings, then today nobody outside a gender studies class would ever have heard of the term male privilege. We deserve our right to talk about cisgendered privilege, and cisgendered people, without forever being reduced to the role of outsider.

transfeminist comes to us courtesy of The Second Awakening
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I recently stumbled on one of the New York Times’ latests attempts to dialogue about gender and masculinity – this time in the form of Cathleen Calbert’s piece entitled, “Forget the Men. Pick a Guy.”

The article is quite provocative, with lines that prickle the skin of gender studies’ folks everywhere:

“Guys [will] rub your belly…They’ll like your cute dog. A guy is never going to shoot Old Yeller in the woods.”

“Then again, guys don’t remember to tell you the doctor’s office called. They don’t check your tires before your big trip. They don’t say, ‘Call me when you get there.’ They say, ‘Love you, have fun,’ because they can’t imagine anything bad happening to you. Which is good, and somehow bad. Guys don’t tell you what to do. This also is both good and, oddly, bad.”

“I want the E.M.T.’s who show up when I’ve collapsed to be men, not guys. I don’t want someone responsible for saving my life to be torn up about the death of his dog or how some chick hurt his feelings.”

It’s easy to try and point out snippets of her piece that unfairly represent (groups of) men. But I think that Calbert is instead providing an interesting articulation of the rules, or rather, the ethics of two kinds of genders that exist among certain men, and how some women (or many of us, for that matter) struggle to understand what our relationship is to the people that ascribe to these kinds of behavioral value systems.

According to Calbert, our expectations of men and guys are as follows: Guys are round characters, and men are flat. Guys are thinkers, and men are do-ers. Guys are feeling, can experience feelings of inadequacy, and experience self-doubt; men mow lawns, follow rules, and don’t cry.

We all know that both men and guys – all men and people out there – can experience all these emotions and behaviors. But what’s weird – and probably done purposely – is that Calbert doesn’t once make mention of the saliency of all of this; this piece in many ways tells a story of how Calbert experiences men in her life as categories. As with the mention of her disturbing sexual assault by male teenagers, these categories are how she has tried to understand her experiences with men – including the most horrifying – in order to make sense of what she has gone through. How can a woman rationalize being with a man after being assaulted by them? Answer: Don’t be with a man. Be with a guy.

While I think that Calbert’s rationalization of masculinity is ultimately unfair and essentialist in nature, I think her story is one that reflects the importance of these gendered categories for many people. For some, creating easily recognizable images of different kinds of men is a mechanism to be stable and comfortable. For others, I suggest a different kind of answer: Be with a person who respects you first, more than any social code of ethics that might instruct them to behave otherwise.
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+ news +
Gays and their eating disorders,
Silly Arizona,
and HRC takes on health care business for the week.

Sincerely,
ts


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A new play has made its home, nestled in New York's Lower East Side. Joshua Conkel's MilkMilkLemonade performing at Under St. Marks through September 26th, is an absurdist jaunt through the lives of Emory (Andy Phelan), a helplessly effeminate boy, his best friend Linda the Chicken (Jennifer Harder), and their indelible dreams of escaping Nanna's chicken farm to Mall Town, USA. in order to audition for Reach for the Stars, a reality talent competition and break free from the mundane normative existence of rural life. The only thing that stands in their way is Nanna (Michael Cyril Creighton), a cancer-ridden, bible-beating, chain-smoking, grandmother, and her determination to process all the chickens on her farm on "Processing day." In an effort to stymie Emory's increasingly problematic effeminacy, Nanna employs the aid of Elliot (Jess Barbagallo) the rough and tumble anarchist-bent trouble child from next door with an evil parasitic twin living in his thigh, which compels him to behave badly. All of this is narrated by the ever uncomfortable "Lady in the Leotard" (Nikole Beckwith) who conventiently translates Linda's unintelligable clucks and voices Elliot's demonic Jiminy cricket of a fetus-in-fetu.

As you can tell, realism wouldn't touch this play with a ten foot pole, and director Isaac Butler revels in the naughty children's play aesthetic which permeates the production. In many ways watching MilkMilkLemonade reminds one of a slightly more political/queer-theoried Animaniacs with the pop-up book set designed by Jason Simms and campy dance montages (Meredith Steinberg). Cronkel's play is funny, dare I say, very funny. But as humorous and witty as the play is, it wasn't particularly inventive thematically. While it's a fair bet to say that there are very few if any plays which feature a giant chicken delivering stand up routines, MilkMilkLemonade's core narrative arc deals with Emory's struggle with gender normative society as a fledgling fey and his abusive relationship with closet case Elliot, who forces Emory in engaging in child sex play. While the absurdist bent offers a refreshing lift to the play, the core narrative seems tired. If I had a dollar for every gay-themed play, movie, and tv show about a gay teen struggling against the heteronormative patriarchy embodied in his abusive closeted butch lover who's really sweet and tender inside but is compelled to react violently because of unseen social forces... I wouldn't be living in the 77 sq. foot space that passes as my bedroom, for one thing.

Thankfully, Butler's choice to cross-cast many of the roles in the play (Nanna and Emory), a new layer of gendered commentary is superimposed on the production. While not a wholly original move, as cross-casting has been a well used theatrical convention dating back to feminist and queer plays through the 60s and 70s, it does complicate the way the audience is asked to interpret Emory and Elliot's relationship. Barbagallo truly shines as Elliot, donning his erratic restless masculinity effortlessly. In fact, several times during the production I had to remind myself that Elliot was being played by a female actor. This performative dissonance immediately causes us to acknowledge the artificiality of Emory and Elliot's relationship since it emphasizes the role of the actors as primary movers propelling the action of the play. While I eat up this kind of gender critique for its brazen rebuke of the notions of sex dichotomies and gender roles, it breaks the crucial veil of suspended disbelief which allows a sympathetic response to Emory's plight. Since we are forced to see the characters as what they actually are, it is difficult to also ask of us to see these characters as real people with emotions which we are to empathize with.

In addition, Nanna is unfortunately tasked with much of the pedagogical work in explaining the birds and the bees as it were. Her lecture on gender roles and her outright "fag"-slinging homophobia exposes her more as a literary device than a person. Which again makes the choice to inflict her with terminal cancer, which she is clearly on the brink of being killed by, all the more strange. Are we meant to empathize with the literary device? Much of the same can be said of Linda the Chicken who I found to be amusing and well-acted, but wholly ancillary and inconsequential where the actual plot is concerned. Linda's perpetual Eyore gloom-and-doom defeatism doesn't inspire much but a frustrated pity. Why she is unable to fly the coop as a giant, singing and dancing fowl is puzzling.

While the critical problems I have with MilkMilkLemonade are pointed, I actually really enjoyed the production. All the actors and creative staff have imbued the play with a certain uppity madness and undeniable humor. The melodramatic scenes where Emory and Elliot "play house" is worthwhile enough to see the play in its entirety. Phelan truly channels Blanche Dubois in Emory's hysterical housewife persona. And lastly, Beckwith's narrator shines brightly in her range going from crazed parasitic twin to awkward storyteller to blaxploitation venomous spider.

MilkMilkLemonade is produced by The Management and Horse Trade theater Group and can be seen at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1st Ave and Ave A) September 10-26, Thursday through Saturday at 8pm.Tickets ($18, $15 students/seniors) are available by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444 or online at www.horseTRADE.info.
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This is a moment I have both anticipated and dreaded since the day I began blogging about video games. Since my first emoticon and hyperlink-laden post documenting my misgivings with the copy of “Sneak King” that came with my Whopper, every tap of the sweat and Doritos-stained analog stick, every arbitrary number I've ever assigned a game's soundtrack, every hot pocket microwaved in secrecy and shame has been in preparation for this one moment. My rite of passage, my trial by fire. My initiation into the illustrious tradition of video game bloggers.

The time has come, my cherubs, for my List Of Video Games Ranked According To Their Relevance To The Seemingly Randomly Assigned Topic.

Five Unsuspectedly Sexist Games

Finding the sexism in the Dead or Alive Volleyball franchise is like finding the racism in this picture. It's so very obvious and unapologetic that anything more than a “huh, well that's kinda fucked up” is a waste of your time and energy. Real sexism, the toxic, brain-eating “okay class today in Home Economics we're going to talk about how to land a rich husband” authentic sexism is found not in the games that are marketed to the very horny adolescent boys and very shady old men of America, but to the games that are marketed to girls themselves. The widespread popularity of handheld consoles has invited a flood of unfortunately produced, poorly conceived video games designed to supplement the “this is what girls do” bullshit so readily available on Disney and Nickelodeon, as has the phenomenon of games being downloaded as opposed to bought in a brick and mortar store with flesh and bone people. The pedantic concepts, shallow gameplay and unoriginal packaging allow these games to be made cheaply and with little remorse for their effects on gamers, as whether or not they bomb doesn't really affect the bottom line of the company.

Alright. Enough jibba-jabba. Nobody's buying this whole “academic” act anyway. Let's just get on with the list.

5. Bratz: Diamondz Forever
System: Nintendo DS
Publisher: THQ

“Shop. Try on clothes. Repeat.” It's the staple of enforced gender roles, the do re mi of sexism. So how did THQ build a better mousetrap with Diamondz Forever? First, they added a “fashion show” angle to the game, which not only forces you to buy new clothes, but then uses those said clothes to judge your worth. Then, they added a “prize”, a game-ending MacGuffin, for you to win, which turns out to be just another pointless fashion accessory that you have no use for now that you've beaten the game. Then, they threw in a bunch of sidequests featuring pets, which are the ultimate accessory, amirite? Finally, just to get you while you're down, they starve the game to about an hour's worth of gameplay. Probably so like you have more time to go shopping (for a Bratz doll).

Haha, seriously though, marketing a video game that only takes an hour to beat to girls is unforgivably patronizing, especially in a time where women have made up the majority of college students since 2005. How you sleep at night is beyond me, but it probably helps that you eat so many live kitties.

4. The Imagine Series for Nintendo DS & Nintendo Wii

System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Virtual Toys, Lexis Numerique
Publisher: Ubisoft

While it would make more sense for this list if I chose only one of the thirty-seven harbingers of hate in this library, you wouldn't be able to muster one game's worth of thoughtful play if you somehow managed to Katamari them all together into one big cosmic ball of suck. The games allow you to simulate the challenges of such woman-empowering careers as: Wedding Designer, Salon Stylist, Babysitter, Interior Designer, Babysitter, Cheerleader, and of course, Babysitter. No, I wasn't being ironic. There are actually four games in the series devoted to babysitting. One of which, titled “Baby Club” sounds like it should be a weapon in Viva Caligula. There is the occasional “step in the right direction” with games like Imagine: Pet Doctor and Imagine: Teacher, but if you're 5-10 year old doctor is self-aware enough to know that she wants to be a vetenarian or instructor when she grows up, chances are she'll take one look at these games and go “What? No MarioKart?” And that's how you ruined Christmas.

The game reflects badly not on the develoeper, but the parent buying the game in the first place. These games seem to suggest that girls are not as capable at jumping on goombas or puzzle solving as boys, and that their DS or Wii would be better used trying to figure out what kind of a career they should pursue. Now before you try to tell me that “nobody uses a game to get ready for a career” go ask a Marine how they felt about Call of Duty (if you're reading this please write me so I know you weren't killed by an RPG), a Med School student about Trauma Center, or a software engineer about Five Minutes To Kill Yourself. If you have that many friends. If I did maybe I wouldn't be doing this nonsense all the time.

3. Fat Princess

System: Playstation Network
Developer: Titan Studios
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
A quirky, cartoony take on “capture the flag”, with the flag replaced with a princess that you force feed to make heavy and thus more difficult to capture and carry back to home base. Do I really need to explain what's wrong with that concept? What's perhaps most heartbreaking about this game is that unlike other titles on this list, it's actually quite good. It's quirky, inventive, and fun, with a focus on teamwork (a trait you don't find often outside of shooters) and a flair for the absurd, which makes the whole “holding a princess captive and feeding her cake” aspect all the more brutal, like the rape scene in A Clockwork Orange or the cries of “shoot that n*****” echoing throughout Twitter following Kanye's latest stunt du jour. I can even handle the exhausted “damsel in distress” trope, because sometimes, after a long day of being teabagged by GokuPwnsYouN00b, you just long to carry a girl in a frilly dress out of a burning building. The game does bring up interesting questions about sizeism, fatphobia, and body image, as we seem to prefer our princesses either frail and petite, or obese and somewhat deformed. But the real question, the one on everyone's minds, is “if she keeps eating all that cake, how is she ever going to find a husband?”

To anyone who would argue that this isn't even remotely aimed at girls, note the similarity between the princess in the picture and Nintendo's Princess Peach. Me-1 You-0.

2. Cooking Mama

Platforms: Nintendo DS & Nintendo Wii
Developer: Cooking Mama Limited Publisher: Taito, Majesco, 505 Games
So what squick me out about this most beloved franchise? Is it that, while marketed as a family game, it nonetheless appears on every “good games for girls” list (and even a “good games for girlfriends” list) and has been shamelessly marketed by outlets like GameStop as a game for girls? Or the insinuation that cooking is a woman's activity? Or that 5-10 year old girls have just been longing for a game that teaches them to cook, an activity most parents don't allow their children do to until their teens or even later and will just become another loathed, thankless responsibility thrust upon them and exploited by friends, significant others, and possibly even their children? No, what rubs me the wrong way about this game is the cutscene, I guess we'll call it, that comes up whenever you run out of time, forget a step, or however else you manage to fuck up chopping up a tomato. Mama will give you the death glare and say “Don't worry, Mama will fix it!” That's pretty shitty when even Halo 3 has more personal accountability than your game. Yes, just leave your mess behind for the woman to clean up. She's got some spare time before Gardening Mama, Crafting Mama, and you guessed it sports fans, even Babysitting Mama. You've got shit to do, you know. Go learn some chemistry and math with Science Papa. If you played this game for longer than 10 minutes and didn't feel like a patiarchal enabler, congratulations, you're Republican Party material.

Super Princess Peach
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Developer: TOSE
Publisher: Nintendo

I'll admit, this one's personal. Growing up, Peach was my idol. She dressed snappily, practically reinvented the parasol, and above all knew that her place was not in the kitchen but up in Mario's grill. From firing red shells at Donkey Kong in Mario Kart to hitting Pit with a frying pan in Smash Bros Brawl, Peach never sacrificed style when she laid the smack down on video game royalty. For the longest time I wanted to get a tattoo of her on my back, but just couldn't stomach the amount of beer necessary to convince myself it was a good idea. Imagine my delight at the prospect of playing as my imaginary girl—role model in a platformer on the DS. I waited outside the GameStop, waiting for it to open so I could play the game I thought I always wanted (and so I could pretend to pre-order a game only to tell the clerk that he “didn't sell me on it fast enough”). I raced home, curled up on the couch, turned on my DS, and turned it back off half an hour later. And cried. Then I ate a cookie. Then I cried some more. Then I blogged about crying. And that's why I have a therapist. Peach should get one too, by the looks of it.

In the game, Peach draws power from her unstable emotions to tantrum and cry at her enemies to death so she can raise some coins to buy items, because no girl's game is complete without an element of shopping, and just because Mario's life is in jeopardy doesn't people should cut you a fucking break or anything. In Super Mario Bros 2 I saw the Princess pull turnips out of the ground and throw them at people. In this game she can't even jump on enemies. Why? Because it's not ladylike? Because she's had to slim down to fit in all those frilly dresses? And why is the game so goddam easy? Don't want me to get too distracted, lest I forget to club babies and dice a fucking cucumber for dinner? Racing and party games are one thing, but adventure platformers? Hah. That's a man's game. Fuck you, Nintendo. If women were as emotionally combustible as you think we are we wouldn't have time to buy your stupid games, on account of being too busy beating the shit out of any random men we encountered on the street. I always knew you were like all the others, Peach. I just always hoped I was wrong. But it's cool. In ten minutes this PBR will kick in and I'll forget the whole thing. Meet ya on the tennis court, betch!

Oh my god. I did it. I've finally arrived on the video game blogger scene. Somebody better call my Momma, cuz I've made it to the big leagues, fools! Screw Attack, here I come!

Brb, hot pocket's done.
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