What I knew going into the film is that it starred Gina Carano. That she is or was a mixed-martial-arts fighter. That Channing Tatum was in the film. That is was directed by Stephen Soderberg. That was it.

What I did not know is that the movie also stars Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Fassbender.

Haywire is a good action-thriller. It’s very similar to the Jason Bourne movies. Carano plays Mallory, a private black ops contractor for whom things have gone terrifically wrong. She’s been betrayed, by someone. She spends the movie fighting to get her good name back.

This is noteworthy. At no point does Mallory fight to protect a child. She’s not married, has no kids or nieces or nephews. There is no kidnapped child in this film. Moreover, Mallory does not rescue women from prostitution or human trafficking. She does not free or rescue women from the drug trade. Mallory does not fight for family, love, or principles of universal justice. She does not defend the weak and downtrodden.

What Mallory does in Haywire is what male action heroes have been privileged to do for nearly a century of film. She’s fighting to get back at the people who betrayed her. She fights because she’s been not merely framed but slandered. And she cannot allow that to stand.

How refreshing.

Another point of note –

At no point does Carano change her clothes on-camera. She is in control of her sexual agency throughout the entire movie. At no point does she strip in order to distract someone. At no point is she threatened with rape.

In fact, no character is threatened with sexual assault at any point in this film.

The writing and dialog in the film are quite good. The plot is a typical international double-cross. The acting is superb. Carano is … okay, she’s not superb. But she’s good, and she carries her parts of the emotional plot of the film very well. The soundtrack is fascinating — it’s nearly European, in that it choses to not have music during many scenes. This adds a realism and immediacy to the action. Moreover, the sound editing all together leaves in many, many background sounds and noises. Shoes squeak.

There is a … not a chase scene, but a scene where Mallory is being tailed. It is an amazingly tense scene. The filming of it was gripping.

Haywire does not pass the Bechdel Test. This points out that the Bechdel Test is a guideline, a principle, not a hard-and-fast limit.

Haywire is a good, solid action flick. It is groundbreaking in a way that I find … heartbreaking. It is groundbreaking in that the sex and gender of the main character really doesn’t matter to the film at all.

2. I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives this past weekend. I don’t have a ton to say about the claims made therein, about curing heart disease by eating vegetables. You can watch the documentary, or read the books, and see what you think. What I did notice was how deeply smugly self-satisfied I felt watching the film. It’s not a pretty emotion, let me tell you.

I do have a strong tendency to smug. Not my best feature.

But I decided that I would simply channel that feeling into continuing to eat the vegetables I eat, and not start lecturing people.

3. SF Squeecast always ends in me going out and watching or reading new-to-me things. In this case, I’ve found a copy of Heaven’s Shadow, and I watched Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. (Swamp Shark was not available for streaming. Neither is Tower Prep.)

4. My co-editor Lynne Thomas tweeted this yesterday:

“Reading page proofs of #Chicks Dig Comics. Y’all, I am SO proud. I hope you love it as much as I do.”

Yep. Me too.

Introduction by Mark Waid
Editors’ Foreword, by Lynne M. Thomas and Sigrid Ellis
Mary Batson and the Chimera Society, by Gail Simone
Summers and Winters, Frost and Fire, by Seanan McGuire
Cosplay, Creation, and Community, by Erica McGillivray
An Interview with Amanda Conner
A Matter of When, by Carla Speed McNeil
The Other Side of the Desk, by Rachel Edidin
An Interview with Terry Moore
Nineteen Panels about Me and Comics, by Sara Ryan
I’m Batman, by Tammy Garrison
An Interview with Alisa Bendis
My Secret Identity, by Caroline Pruett
The Green Lantern Mythos: A Metaphor for My (Comic Book) Life, by Jill Pantozzi
Vampirella, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Page Turn, by Jen Van Meter
Confessions of a (Former) Unicorn, by Tara O’Shea
The Evolution of a Tart, by Sheena McNeil
Kitty Queer, by Sigrid Ellis
The Captain in the Capitol: Invoking the Superhero in Daily Life by, Jennifer Margret Smith
Burn, Baby Burn, by Lloyd Rose
Tune in Tomorrow, by Sue DCWKA
An Interview with Greg Rucka
Comic Book Junkie, by Jill Thompson
From Pogo to Girl Genius, by Delia Sherman
I am Sisyphus, and I am Happy, by Kelly Thompson
Captain America’s Next Top Model, by Anika Dane Milik
An Interview with Louise Simonson
Me Vs. Me, by Sarah Kuhn
A Road That has No Ending: Revenge in Sandman, by Sarah Monette
Mutants, by Marjorie Liu
You’re on the Global Frequency, by Elizabeth Bear
Crush on a Superhero, by Colleen Doran

When I have dropped irritatingly coy hints about how proud I am of our contributors, how pleased I am with the book, well, now you understand why. The essays in Chicks Dig Comics are from some of the brightest, most passionate, most articulate lovers of comics books I have the pleasure to know. I am proud of their work, and of this book.

You can pre-order Chicks Dig Comics.

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Powell’s
Indiebound
Diamond

Spread the word, if you can. Tell your local comic store about the book, about the fact that Diamond is shipping it. Tell your friends, your LiveJournal or Dreamwidth, tell your blog. Tell your Facebook and Google+ acquaintances. Look at that table of contents and pre-order a copy for your mom, your sister, the girl who sits next to you in Greek Lit and doodles Wonder Woman during lecture.

If this book is anything at all, it’s a love letter. Glance up at that Table of Contents again, will you? If you love comics, just look at the company you keep.

2. I am about halfway through The Host, by Stephanie Meyer. I am enjoying it. It is, among other things, a story about very weird consent issues, and given what I have heard about the Twilight series — which I have never read — I wonder what it is about the cultural moment that Meyer is seeing.

3. I am one of those people who is obsessed with Downton Abbey. Also, being me, I can name the actors who play Lady Mary, Lady Edith, Lady Sybil, Lady Grantham, and Anna. And, um, I think the guy who plays Lord Grantham is, ah, Hugh? Maybe? Hugh something? I do have my biases.

Also, I am having a contrary streak and I really like Lady Edith, in addition to Lady Mary. Lady Edith is not plain! Or untalented! Or sour! (Okay, she’s a little bit sour. But I challenge you to remain perfectly pleasant when your whole family has written you off as a loss.) Laura Carmichael is really attractive!

4. I am really looking forward to going back to the Y, now that my cold is mostly gone.

5. It turns out that N has a slow-cooker, and a friend is lending us her bread machine! So I can try the use of both of these items for a bit before investing in them. I approve.

2. Both the kids are sick.

3. I haven’t worked out in a week and the weight-lifting calluses are coming off my hands, dangit.

4. I finished History of the World in 100 Objects, I finished Murder at the Wars and The Unforgiving Minutes, I finished all the tpb collections I hadn’t gotten around to reading, I started The Host.

5. J gets Hero of the Week award, for doing school every day this week without any breaks.

The pieces of my steampunk zeppelin traffic controller costume are here!

Overalls.

Linen shirt.

Leather work gloves.

Working-man’s cap.

Leather leg-guards.

I am debating these boots, but they won’t be visible really. I might skip it and just wear my actual boots. Those will be more comfortable anyway.

But, I could just get the boots, wear them this spring, break them in, and hope they are comfortable ….

Hmm.

A friend of mine is making me a signal lantern. We discussed how to do this in a steampunk manner, and said friend is a complete mad scientist, so I have faith in her designs. I also have goggles and a spyglass.

I love vidding. I love the creativity, the way vidders can re-cut images to comment on those images, they way music and pictures can be put together to tell entirely new stories. But, then, I’m a fan of mash-ups, fanfiction, re-interpretations, covers, homages, and all sorts of transformative works. I think culture can, does, and should interrogate itself.

Onward to the vids!

Push is one of the best superhero movies I’ve seen. This vid describes the relationship between the lead characters, while highlighting the awesomeness of Dakota Fanning.

I Gave You All

Sarah Connor of the various Terminator properties is one of my favorite characters ever. This vid, set to “L.E.S. Artistes” by Santigold, tries to get at the deliberate isolation that Connor cultivates, and her reasons for doing so.

Birds of Prey was not a very good television show. And Ashley Scott as Huntress was not incredibly well-written. But she is really hot, and kinda bad-ass, and this vid features those qualities. Shallow rec is shallow.

Dragonslayer was a movie I watched obsessively as a young adolescent. It was one of the formative texts in my early “being a girl is going to suck” theory. I found the vidder’s comments on this vid to be interesting. Basically, the vidder didn’t like the text of the film very much, and tried to fix the plot in her vid. I rather approve.

There was a phase in middle school-junior high when, rather than tell people who my favorite character on The Facts of Life was, I said I didn’t watch it. Some early sense of queer-clostedness, I expect. Because, of course I liked Jo. This vid captures some of the unintended subtext. Subtext which, let me tell you, I saw perfectly well when I was younger.

Finally, This vid for the Die Hard movies conflates sex and violence, deliberately pointing out how well the movies do the same thing.

My head has been thinking fannishly the last few weeks. I have various plot bunnies to offer you all:

1. Olivia Dunham (from the tv series Fringe) and Audrey Horne (from the tv series Twin Peaks) are roommates at the FBI academy. Their respective personalities are immediately, on the surface, something that the other does not trust. What happens next? What is their relationship like? Optional: One of their instructors is Dana Scully (X-Files) or Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs, et al.)

2. The tv series Downton Abbey in a steampunk universe. What changes? What doesn’t? How does the tech level affect The Great War, and how does this in turn change things at Downton?

3. Officer Valentine (Resident Evil: Apocalypse) and Lara Croft (Tomb Raider). Valentine is on indefinite leave and is taking vacation in Bali, to get away from The Umbrella Corporation. Lara is in Bali hunting for a lost city rumored to once have a cure for zombification. They team up, fight zombies, wear really short-shorts, and save the world.

4. A new book has come out, [Insert Character Name Here]‘s Guide to Ethical Polyamory. What character would you want to see this book from, and what would a choice snippet from it be?

Discuss!

I will also accept fic written from these prompts, playlists of music, photo manips, or vids.

:grins: This is my brain, welcome to it.

2. The kids made dinner on Saturday evening! Well, mostly. They picked the ingredients from what we had available, did 80% of the chopping, picked the spices and flavors they wanted, and did all the stirring. What resulted was imperfect but absolutely edible.

3. The overalls for my cosplay arrived. They need to look battered and broken-in, so I told the children to take the pants to the play room and go to town on them. I believe the children each climbed into one leg of the overalls and started wrestling. I didn’t ask for details.

4. M has really gotten into the computer game Minecraft. Since N and J are both playing it a lot, this works out well. I merely presume that any remarks related to diamonds, lava, netherack, or strip-mines are Not My Concern.

5. K taught herself how to braid by observation. She is the sort of person who can watch a physical activity being performed, and figure out what to do with her body to replicate that activity. This is like living with a space alien as far as I am concerned. I cannot pick up physical skills that way. I think my daughter is kinda awesome.

6. The money is not in the bank yet, but my family has sold our cabin in Wisconsin. I am breaking even, in the sense that I have lost all the money for taxes, interest on loans, and upkeep, but I will not owe any more money to anyone, either. Given the real estate climate right now, this is a complete and total victory.

7. An acquaintance of mine once remarked casually, about some plans, “Eh, I’m easy.” Her partner looked at her, smirking, and said, “No, you’re effortless.”

Yesterday a friend recommended a book to me by saying the following:

“It’s about a sassy teenage girl living in a post-apocalyptic survival colony who shares her mind with an alien, and she’s being tracked by a female alien/person with emotional problems.”

Ahem. I’m not easy, I’m effortless. Also, the benefit of telling all of you the sorts of things I like to read and watch is that you then tell me about these things.

Now, I don’t know how you, Gentle Reader, do your cosplay. But to me it seems that cosplay provides two types of experiences. You can cosplay in a way that reveals something about yourself — your desires, your goals, your hopes and fears, your self-image — or you can cosplay in a way that disguises and obfuscates these things. I’ve never been good at acting, so the second option — cosplaying as something I would never be or do or want — is not appealing to me. So what, then, are the aspects of myself that I want to put on display via cosplay?

I love steampunk, I truly do. But so much of it seems to be focused on the adventurer, the lone scientist, the rebel, the explorer. I am not a loner. I am not a rebel. The closest I ever got to being a rebel in my life was being vaguely approving of ACT-UP and Queer Nation, and that was mostly because I could meet women. Yes, yes, I did shave the side of my head and braid resistors and charms into my hair in a Shadowrun-RPG-inspired way, but, honestly, so were a lot of people at the time. If I cosplayed as a swaggering piratical pilot, I would be acting the whole time. And I am pants at acting.

My desire to dress steampunk starts with “oh my, those goggles look AWESOME, I want to wear them!” Yet one really looks a bit foolish wearing a pair of brass-and-leather goggles around one’s neck while shopping for soymilk at Target. I love my fantasy life, I do, but I am not the sort of person who blends my fantasy life and my real life. I segregate, keeping the fiction off to one side. (I understand this is not the way everyone does it, and that’s fine. Not judging, speaking merely for my desires.) So I need some sort of cosplay outfit. Yet I can’t bring myself to just wear the goggles around a convention for no purpose. If I’m going to wear them, I’m going to wear them for a reason.

Finally, it hit me. If there are zeppelins, they must take off and land. And if there are airfields, there are airfield controllers. And airfield controller is EXACTLY the sort of person I am. The quiet person who stays on the ground, thank-you-very-much, helping the endeavors of others, remaining in the background. I could totally cosplay a zeppeling traffic controller.

So what does a ZTC do? What would the costume need? Well, a ZTC would stand on top of a tall tower in the center of the field, scanning the horizon for the signals of incoming airships. Brass spyglass, check. She would flash the signal lights at the incoming ships, giving the coded directions to tell the captain where to land. She would signal the ground crew to get ready. Hand-held signal box and signal flags, check. She would sometimes come down from the tower and help the ground crew pull the ship into position at mooring, or move the egress tower to and from the side of the gondola. Goggles, leather gloves, coil of rope, check.

The ZTC’s clothes would be workman’s clothes — a coverall, to protect the legs and feet from ropes, mud, and debris. Her cap would be soft and practical, shading the eyes but not getting in the way. Under the coveralls she wears a shirt, but not a vest — the coveralls provide decency.

This, this is a cosplay I can do. Stolid, staid, and practical. I look forward to showing it off at CONvergence!