Sexy Lady Song

A week or so ago, while driving with my parents, we went through a Jewish-orthodox neighbourhood. On the radio was an interview with the organizer of a classical music festival, plugging a Leonard Bernstein evening. Then, they played America, from West Side Story.

This sing has aged, and not incredibly well. I’m sure it was considered racially sensitive for the late fifties, but when it started on the radio, I felt slightly uncomfortable. That feeling basically stopped by the end of the song, when the music becomes amazing, and they could be in blackface for all I cared. The rhythm is amazing, the vocal work is great, and it’s completely sweeping. The thing that really struck me by the end of the song was, though, that all the men who walked in the streets we were driving in were not allowed to listen.

Some Jewish orthodox men, and especially those who are ultra-orthodox, will not listen to women singing. There are various levels of scrutiny this prohibition can come at, but in its basis, it relies on the fact that the voice of a woman is inherently erotic. I should point out that, depending on how strict a religious Jew is, they might not even listen to non-Hebrew, and non-religious music, but my concern is with women, as it usually is. Just like with segregated buses, which have only grown strong since this article, ultra-orthodox extremists seem to put plenty of blame on women being immodest and too seductive to be seen.

The reason for women sitting at the back is so men will not have to see them, but women are allowed to see men. Similarly, women are allowed to hear men sing, and just like in secular society, men are the rule, and women are the exception. In religious CD stores, it’s assumed that the singer is male, there there’s usually a sticker or an annotation that notes a woman sing on this album, or that there’s an additional album for women. This assumes that women either have no sex drive, or are less likely to become aroused.

As a fan of opera, a fandom which brought us a blog like Barihunks, dear god, do I beg to differ. I liked opera as a child, but I had only returned to it when I realized just how handsome and beautiful some of those performers are. Combined with their lovely voices, and the surprising amounts of sex that you’ll find in opera (when a fandom complains a production of Billy Budd isn’t homoerotic enough, you’ve really found a good one to be in), someone like me has more than enough reason to find a song sexy.

So if women have sex drives, too, should all singing just be banned? How about no. I think that, by 2011, maybe it’s time to realize that everyone but asexuals have a sex drive, and that’s basically fine. We’ve also advanced enough in psychology to understand that even rape isn’t really derived from sexual arousal and lack of control. Sexual assault is the result of power, and wanting to show it in terrible ways. The nearly constant assault women face (check the Hollaback of your choice), isn’t really because someone heard a very sexy lady-song. It’s fine to be aroused by things, but it’s less fine to put someone down via sexual means, because you feel like proving your superiority.

I leave you now with what is probably one of the sexiest duets out there, with Simon Keenlyside and Miah Presson, in a surprisingly non-rapey production of Don Giovanni, from the Royal Opera House, who never fail to deliver.

To Be Israeli

This Wednesday will be the eve of the Jewish new year, and our newspapers and TV are very likely to go even slightly more insane than they usually are. There will be end-of-year lists, which will repeat themselves exactly in December, but I expect to be bothered most by that semi-religious, nationalistic feeling that seems to come down on our media during the fall’s holiday season. The bane of this time (and any other time, in my opinion, as there’s always an excuse), is articles like these.

They crop up, several every year, and tell us what’s so special about being Israeli. Most of them read exactly like articles explaining why what’s so special about being American, why the writer loves New York (City), or what sets Italy, Sweden, or the UK apart from those other EU countries who are stuffy and boring. It’s the sort of article that’s supposed to make you feel nice about living in a country that would probably rather elect a new and better public, if this one is dissatisfied. These articles come to our aid, and tell us that even if things are bad, there’s no place like home. I usually need a good shower after reading one.

To me, being Israeli doesn’t hold any kind of great national pride. Maybe I’m slightly incapable of it, or just had bad personal experiences with Israeli authority, but from my earliest memories, this status of being a Jewish, Israeli citizen, is one of violence and privilege. There are so many boxes you have to tick, in order to be Israeli, that I wonder if I really am one, and if so, do I want to be, after all this scrutiny?

Early in school, there was one Ethiopian girl in my grade. There was a fairly large Jewish-Ethiopian and Jewish-Russian immigration into Israel in the nineties. Some people probably made fun of this girl, because a teacher spoke about this with us, one day. Charlie Brooker mentions an incident like this in the seventies, but ours didn’t go very much like that: The teacher had told us that we mustn’t make fun of black people, because they’re very hard workers. During one of the first Bible in middle school, in which we were rereading Genesis, we reached Sodom and Gomorrah. Our teacher had flat-out told us that the cities were destroyed for homosexuality. That teacher went on to claim that one of his former students, who was transgender, was punished by god for not paying attention in Bible class, and that Muslims are barbarians. Another teacher assured us that a certain kabbalistic ritual was a ‘scientifically tested and proven method’. It involved randomly opening a Bible book.

My high-school was semi-private, and while I’ve had the opportunity to learn from several great teacher, it was when I felt the media starting to change around me. This campaign, ending with the words “A true Israeli doesn’t dodge draft”, came out when I was seventeen, and on the verge of my own draft. While it created a lot of backlash, it was the first time being Israeli started feeling, to me, more like a burden than anything else. I won’t discuss the issues with serving in the IDF, but conscription exists in Israel, and the options to avoid draft are to sit in army prison for a few months, or be discharged for some reason. In either case, the army is the one that releases you.

I was drafted at 18, and being Israeli became being able to discuss the merits of genocide over lunch with a nice officer, learning that sexism and racism is a casual thing, and there’s really very little you can say about them, if you don’t want to be grounded to base. Why aren’t you smiling?

And so, to me, being Israeli has always been about finding someone less Israeli than you, and kicking them. It’s about being taught from the earliest age that everyone is out to kill you, and that this justifies absolutely anything that you might be able to do to prevent this, because Never Again. Being Israeli is about being extremely violent to the society around you, to take advantage of anything that you can, but still be home for the new year, with your family, and read and article about the true meaning of being Israeli: A white middle-class Jew, who served in the army, and is preferably not a woman or gay, thank you very much.

Why I Die A Little Bit Every Time You Link Tim Minchin to Me

Dear readers, this post will have to come with a disclaimer, and one that goes beyond me being an oversensitive feminist. If you’ve been long enough on the internet, you probably know that argument does not go down very well. However, for the purpose of this post, and on this topic alone, I am crazy. You will think it while you read, and I accept that. And yet, I simply cannot get over that man called Tim Minchin, and his fans.

I am an Atheist, and as such, anyone who shares this trait with me is Tim Minchin’s Biggest Fan. Really. It’s in the Atheist guidebook. To those who are not atheists, though, there should be an introduction: Tim Minchin is an Australian comedian, and somewhat an heir for Tom Lehrer, in that he writes and performs comedy songs and plays the piano nicely. And really, when I first looked up his videos, he seemed like one of the best things on the internet. I have my tendency to obsess over this or that comedian, and these tend to be lovely weeks. Some of these binge periods have made me a lifelong fan of many, and I’ve written about QI before.

In my adoration to some of these comedians, this is probably when a bit of crazy kicks in. I can get very attached to the celebrities I like and agree with, and this is probably my biggest problem: Tim Minchin is a wonderful performer. I still love him. Not only is he very funny, and an Atheist, but he also writes some very touching songs. Go on and listen to this. I remember tearing up, at that point.

Right after White Wine in the Sun, which really was my favorite song of his, I stumbled across two other videos. This is when my oversensitive feminist rears its critical head. And while she makes me miserable sometimes, such as whenever I watch commercials, I know she’s right. The next two videos by Tim Minchin that I stumbled across, then, were this and this. I cannot watch these videos again, unfortunately, so I will not hold your hand and write exactly what is wrong with them. I will say that a key part of it was the condescending look at feminism, and the invocation of women as sex objects, no matter the topic. Women are still, in the first video, totally acceptable targets, even as the song marches on.

This was when the feminist in me clashed with the adoring fangirl, which still resides in my head since my days in the Harry Potter fandom. Somewhere, deep down, I still become fourteen whenever I see a talented person on-screen. And in this world of Western comedy and Atheism, these people have a general tendency to be white middle-class men, usually heterosexual. Now, I’m familiar with privilege, and I can’t say that I don’t enjoy it. I know that we can’t crucify just anyone who’s failed to look beyond it, but when this person is someone I’ve grown to adore, it depresses me, and I feel a bit betrayed. I hate feeling this, because these people do not owe me anything, and I have my full rights to just not watch or read them anymore.

These videos, in combination with the ones I loved, disturbed me to a somewhat extreme degree. I remember crying myself to sleep, that night, and I still can’t bring myself to listen to any of his songs that I still love, and certainly not enjoy them. I don’t really know why I’ve reacted this way for Tim Minchin. I enjoyed Rosemary’s Baby, despite Polansky being a rapist; I still love Stephen Fry, despite some slightly sexist humour, and statements that made me shift uncomfortable in my chair; And I still look up to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, even though the former belittled sexual harassment, and the latter just has an overall creepy-sexist-vibe I can’t even really explain.

A part of me wonders if I can’t forgive Minchin because of his relative youth. British humour, especially with its younger comedians, has grown on me because it approached matters of gender and race with a sort of grace and progressive manner I haven’t seen before. Not really. The internet has more of this, now, but the new generation of British comedians was the one who introduced me to it. Could it be that our PC culture had worked, and hasn’t killed of humour like the old generation moaned about?

I don’t know. Because I’m crazy. I cried myself to sleep over a sexist video, remember?

This is one of the things I always find hard to admit, or even think about, when reading atheist blogs, or other comedians, writing about Tim Minchin. The man, if you’re on the right places online, is completely unavoidable. To admit that I dislike him might just be coming out as a certified crazy-lady who doesn’t have a sense of humor or irony. A bit like a naked king of comedy, iff you like clichés as much as I do. It pains me, because I love comedy, and I love Tim Minchin. It’s just the sort of love that makes me die a little inside.

Ways to Die #1000: Suicide

Channel 8, in Israeli cables, is the sciency-cultury channel, and the only one there is. When I was just a little girl, it aired opera and ballet on the weekend, and I watched A Street Scene, Bluebeard’s Castle, and Howard Hanson’s Nymphs and Satyr. These days, it mainly airs usually excellent BBC documentaries, and even QI, a program that helped me through a very bad year of my life.

Today, after a sensitive documentary about a teenage boy, who was adopted after his parents abandoned him because of a genetic deformity, channel 8 aired an episode of 1000 Ways to Die. It was an episode from season three, which means there are more of them, and I already want to die.

I was vaguely familiar with this show from clips, and from my mom being a bit hysterical about some of the situations she’s watched on it, but boy, was I unprepared for what I had in store. In general, I have no issue with silly deaths, or The Darwin Awards. Silly deaths are silly, and the gene pool clearly does need some chlorine now and then. What I clearly wasn’t ready for, was just how mean-spirited it can become.

The main premise of 1000 Ways to Die, is that someone, who is not like you, has done something stupid. They reenact it with some aspiring actors, and the narrator makes fun of them. Then there’s a pun that makes you cringe your face off. To me, after I reinstalled my face, the most horrible thing was seeing how each story is clearly narrated and structured to make me feel as though these people clearly deserved to die. They deserved to die not only because they were bad people, in some stories, but because they acted outside the norm.

A man who likes being treated like a baby, who is called a freak by the narrator, died in a household accident. This is okay, because his sexual preferences weren’t like yours. While his wife played along with his perversion, she won’t cry for him. She probably feels released, right? That fat guy didn’t tip the woman who saved his life, so he went into cardiac arrest. The feminist… The story about the feminist activist nearly made me cry.

A radical feminist activist, shown as pretty violent, has just finished a conference about attacking men’s privates, a favorite pastime of mine. They interview a feminist during the segment, and the subtitles for her read ‘BLAH…BLAH…BLAH’, because that clearly doesn’t make me want to go and cut the first penis-bearer I see on the street, right? Those kooky feminists. Said radical feminist is not only masturbating in her hotel room with a vibrator, but she’s also a lesbian. She dies. Children, please highlight the number of perversions from society this story presents in order for us to be glad a woman is dead, and send it to the editor. The winners will receive a bachelor’s in gender studies.

And this thing got made. This thing has three seasons, and possibly more. They got actors to play in it. They got people who agreed to be interviewed. They got a narrator. They hired someone whose job was to write bad puns about dead people. I can’t, for my own life, fathom how can anyone watch this without losing all faith in humankind, and all will to live.

I’ve never had to deal very much with death, but I have given mine a lot of thought. This happens, when you go through periods of depression. I served in the IDF, and would sometimes sit and think about committing suicide in the toilet, like any other depressed soldier, but one of the things that stopped me, apart from reciting jokes from QI, was that our toilets were absolutely disgusting. It’s nice to know that if, in service, I were found face-down in a pool of diarrhea, I can count on TV to make it as entertaining as possible, so my loved ones won’t have to cry.