here, at the end of all things.

(Source: bitchsandwich)

3:43 pm • 6 June 2013 • 128 notes

pro choice, pro feminism, pro cats: yes homo.

3:37 pm • 6 June 2013 • 33 notes

(Source: true-direction)

1:30 pm • 6 June 2013 • 8 notes

malindalo:

alyssakorea:

Tumbling over the past year and a half has made me see the problems of gender roles that exist in media, but sometimes it gets to the point where I over analyze every single piece of television or film that I come across. (However this in no way means that I think feminist media criticism is wrong, or should be avoided!) Mostly I just over think everything.

This is an interesting thing! It represents something I’ve seen it a lot in discussions of feminist criticism on the internet lately: the tendency to believe that something is either X or the opposite of X. This basically creates a binary situation: an either/or scenario. Rather than overthinking, a binary situation actually oversimplifies — especially with regard to gender, which is often perceived as a binary even though it’s not.

I believe that almost everything (including representations of gender) exists on a spectrum, and much of the really interesting sticky-complicated-fun stuff happens somewhere in the middle. The problem is, people often prefer to view the world in black and white because it’s simpler that way. Good vs. evil. Love vs. hate. Right vs. wrong. Feminine vs. masculine.

The world is, of course, more complicated than that, and so is gender. A character can be both good and evil, sometimes simultaneously. There are all sorts of fascinating emotions between love and hate. What makes something “right” versus something “wrong”? That question alone opens up a ton of issues around culture, ethics, and philosophy (and more!). “Feminine” and “masculine” open up similar cans of worms, since they’re not stable terms, but are contingent on a whole host of shifting cultural factors.

Maybe part of the binary’s enduring existence is related to the idea that criticism is about determining whether something is good or bad. But again, that’s a binary. I personally believe that criticism is about teasing out the complexity of a work of art: seeing both the good and the bad, and not necessarily casting judgement on either. (“Judgement”: another loaded phrase with multiple connotations.)

I think art is meant to be complicated and messy and sometimes difficult to categorize — just like life.

(via tangledaxon)

12:38 pm • 6 June 2013 • 66,132 notes

(Source: piecesofabroken-heart, via gtfothinspo)

1:48 am • 6 June 2013 • 6,595 notes