Sworn Virgins in Albania

I just read a very interesting article on Yahoo:

Sworn to virginity and living as men in Albania

I wish I had read about this sort of thing in college honestly, since I took quite a few classes on Gender Studies and even had an honors level course on revenge across cultures (they briefly discuss the revenge culture in Albania in the article). It really would have come in handy!

The article talks about the tradition of women "becoming men" in order to support and take care of a family left without a patriarch. For example, if the head of the household died. One of the virgin females in the family would step forward, swear lifelong virginity and become a man. They would have all the rights of a man, dress like a man, and take on the behavior of a man as well. This isn't practiced anymore, since the culture in Albania has changed. But there are still some "sworn virgins" around, a couple of which were interviewed for this article.

One thing that I find fascinating about these sworn virgins is that they can even take on the misogynist beliefs of a man. Well, at least men from their generation. They believe that women these days don't know their place, and act inappropriately. Which makes sense, if they only fraternize with men, and are treated by their society like men, it makes total sense that they would agree with the patriarchal beliefs that create the need for their existence as a sworn virgin in the first place. I guess women who grew up in that culture would have those beliefs too, but you'll have to read the article to see what I mean. There's something very intriguing about the way these sworn virgins express themselves and their thoughts.

But that's quite a sacrifice to make for one's family. They give up sex, marriage, the chance to have children-- all in order to ensure the safety of their family members. I guess in some ways it was better to be a man in those days, since they received more freedom and respect. But that's still a lot to give up.

I'd really love to find a way to tie this in to an article about horror movies, if I could. And there's an episode from Angel that I just watched recently that I thing I could bring into a discussion like this. In a way, I guess what I get from this-- and what I'd like to tie into horror-- is that a patriarchical society just about forces women to take on male roles in order to assert their power. Because the behaviors and actions that are used to assert power are attributed to men. The tools as well, in Albania women used to not be allowed to carry weapons-- but sworn virgins could, just like men. So while that sort of society can be misogynistic and oppressive, it creates this loophole for women to strike back. Except in societies like Albania where some women can claim power through "becoming" a man-- but they aren't allowed to retain any of their femininity, save their actual body parts.

And this actually does reflect the tendency in horror for virgins to be survivors, and sexually active individuals are killed off. By being virgins, they sacrifice their sexuality for power-- though unknowingly. I like the thought-path this article is taking me on!

The Oil Problem

I love this blog (www.thesimpledollar.com) in general, but today the author did a "reader mailbag" post including a question about oil and gas prices. I think he made a great explanation of the situation we're in and the most practical thing to do about it. Blaming oil companies may feel good at first, but it really leaves us powerless (What can I do to change the way a billion dollar industry operates?). We can have control over the situation once we take control of ourselves and take responsibility for reducing our dependence on oil. I think the author gave some great starter suggestions for how to do so.

Read the mailbag blog post-- the question about oil is the last one.

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/05/19/reader-mailbag-11/

Love & Marriage

In the morning on my way to work, I usually listen to a particular radio station. I do have a CD player, but it will not work when the car is below a certain temperature. Even when it is warm enough to work, sometimes I just feel like mindlessly listening to chatter. I've grown to like the morning show on this particular station because the deejays are so ridiculously funny and upbeat. There's also a certain level of trash factor, like a talk show, and I have an affinity for some trash.

Like a lot of morning shows, they have topics every morning that people call in and discuss. Recently the topic of marriage has come up in at least a couple of their more specific topics-- today's was "Surprise! I'm calling off the wedding!" I've been hearing a lot of people express their aversion to marriage, and it really kind of puts me off. I guess I'm a little surprised at how many people out there want nothing to do with it.

Now I'm not the type of person who wants to force everyone to agree with me. Don't listen to my boyfriend if he tells you I am, and he probably would. What I have is a competitive streak which when informally challenged to debate comes screaming out into the open. I don't like being told that I'm wrong for my opinions, and sometimes the way others express themselves can sound very challenging.

No, if someone just isn't interested in marriage that's fine. What do I care? As long as they're not somebody I was hoping to marry, it's ultimately their business.

But me, I want to get married. I want the proposal, the wedding, the reception, the honeymoon. And I want a marriage that lasts long after those things are over and done with. I don't want it for religious reasons. I don't really care about a gigantic expensive wedding. I'm a very practical woman, and I definitely don't have illusions about some big diamond engagement ring. For me it's about family and friends, getting to celebrate a major event in life with everyone you care about around you. I know that our society has created other ways of accomplishing this without actually achieving the dreaded m-word. But this is a tradition that goes way way back, and I don't see it hurting anybody. I actually like it.

Part of this is I'm sure because of the marriage I witnessed between my parents. They've been married for over 30 years, and they're happy. It doesn't mean everything has been absolutely perfect, I have a couple specific memories that were not my favorite. And they fight, like anyone. Nevermind what fights they might have had when I wasn't around. But they're fine and they love eachother. And I've marveled at how my dad has put up with my mom, at times. I couldn't do it, our personalities clash in the wrong places. But they did, and that makes me optimistic about being able to do it myself-- with the right person.

I guess I just feel bad for people out there who might be missing out on something that a part of them wants, but that they're denying themselves because of fears and issues that they have. I'm sure that there are people out there who are perfectly happy being alone, or happy being with somebody without ever getting married. I just worry for the ones who could be happiest with marriage, if they could only get past their self-restrictions.

Of Being Unheard

Youth has become a commodity that is at the same time both highly desired and drastically devalued. On one hand, pop culture and the media fawns over young beautiful celebrities. They're attractive, they're sexy, they're better than the average person. But we also make out the young to be unenlightened, uninformed and foolish. They lie and make up stories for attention, and are painted as ignorant simply because of a lack of "life experience."

Young people lack credibility in the eyes of older adults-- young women even moreso. Men are still thought of as more worldly, even as teenagers. Femininity and youth both share a perceived lack of credibility and objectivity, the former mostly due to their biology and the latter because of inexperience.

Society warns us not to make up stories, not to overreact and cause panic among our communities. Cry wolf, and you will pay dearly for it later. But the cynicism that story encourages creates people who will assume a lie quickly and unapologetically. Combine an unlikely story with a young face or a female build and you'll have "liar" written all over you. You're exaggerating, you're lying, you're imagining things.

In horror no one believes you until it's too late. Demons, homicidal maniacs, ghosts, vampires, zombies; impossible, they couldn't be true. The NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series is a perfect example of teenagers facing both evil and the terror of not being truly heard and believed. In every installment it's the children of Elm Street who are targets of Freddy's cruelty. Everytime they try to tell others what's happening to them, no one believes them-- particularly adults. The irony is that adults unintentionally created the monster, yet they don't believe it when he comes back for their children. And of course their unwillingness to believe that such a thing could exist eventually kills them and others.

Even adult women are not necessarily immune to this disease despite their years of experience. If you look at movies like THE EXORCIST, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE HAUNTING and LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH you see adult women facing a supernatural foe as well as a struggle to find one soul who will believe them and help them. Instead the men they look to for help brand them as mentally ill, hysterical or otherwise not of clear mind.

THE EXORCIST points out a specific area where credibility is often questioned: in the doctor's office. In the movie Reagan's doctors keep finding no evidence to support their theories about her mysterious illness, yet they will not give up on them and refuse to listen to Reagan or her mother. In WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE, a similar situation is seen in Heather and her son. The doctors, stuck in their rigid paradigm with no will to leave it, cannot accept the possibility that the boy's problem is not physiological. They even go so far as to believe his mother is abusing them before they'll believe that something supernatural is happening. And this film is unique in that it mirrors the real world where the characters are aware of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies and that nobody ever believes it's Freddy until it's too late. But still, when faced with a fantastical circumstance that could very well be out of one of those movies, they cling to a mindset where those things are not real, where it is just a movie and there is no explanation that is not scientific and tangible.

As you can see, this is a fairly common plot device in horror. There are many others which feature characters facing similar challenges in credibility and quite often it's young people or adult women who are disbelieved. I believe this reveals something about ourselves, that we and society are less likely to believe the claims of certain types of people simply because of a perceived lack of knowledge or experience. An incredible claim doesn't not necessarily mean it isn't true, but I suppose we would rather it not be true than face what it would mean for monsters, ghosts and ghouls to be such a real threat.

High Tension, Low Tolerance

The past few years I have been experiencing a decreasing physical tolerance to many things. I suppose it's a consequence of age in some ways, but I've also got this digestive-disease monkey on my back which makes things worse.

My tolerance for alcohol greatly decreased at some point during 2005. I estimate this, as it is between the binges that characterized my senior year of college and the times I started getting uncharacteristically sick in 2006 after drinking only a fraction of what I had drank in times past. I had only vomited once before, but began doing so a bit more often until I finally gave in and changed my drinking habits. Even then, I still had some digestive troubles.

My tolerance for medicine seems to have always been low, as I can't remember a time that taking allergy medicine didn't make me loopy. These days, the effects are less fun and more nauseating. New medications often give me nausea, and I can't take Vicodin for more than a couple days before the nausea just becomes too much. No risk of addiction there, I suppose.

Sadly, my tolerance for gore has dramatically decreased over the past several months as well. Not that I ever won "Poker Face of the Year" while watching a gory movie, but at least I could handle watching it. While I can still tolerate it, I feel that my body is less delighted to withstand not only the violence, but the suspense in horror films.

I was watching HIGH TENSION the other night, which I've seen before. To say I was watching it is a little misleading, as much of the time I was often doing something else or on my computer as I listened to what was going on. This is not behavior I reserve for horror movies, I often do it just because I like to multi-task, and a good movie is nice background while doing other chores. It makes it feel less like work. However this time, I think I did purposely do it.

That stress which feels so much like riding a roller coaster, and the revulsion at the sight of blood is no longer tolerated very well by my body. I find it really unnerving, because I am still very much a fan of horror. If this keeps getting worse, how am I to continue enjoying my favorite genre?

Then again, maybe like any medicine if I keep exposing myself to those feelings my sensitivity will settle back down again.

I talk about my health and body way more than anybody else I know. You have to understand that it's on my mind every single day. Maybe as time goes on and I adjust to it I will be more accepting and be able to resist letting it take over my life. But it's still very fresh and young, and like the physical healing that has to occur, the emotional healing takes a lot of work, time and patience.

I promise that the next blog I write will not be about my health... will not touch upon it at all. I'm even sick of hearing myself write about this. Let's move on!

Return to House on Haunted Hill

I wanted to like this movie. I wanted to love this movie. I was praying that although the idea of filming a sequel to a remake sounds ludicrous, maybe it was so crazy it would work.

As a general rule, I don't like remakes. Most are tackling films that were great to begin with and they usually fall terribly short of their goals. When they aren't making the exact same movie as before, they're tampering with key elements that completely change the original story, elements that were important to the success of that story. Get me started about the remake of THE HAUNTING, and you'll see what I mean.

The original HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL isn't exactly brilliant, but it's a favorite of mine for various reasons. I was skeptical of course when I heard they were remaking it, but since the original did have room for improvement I gave the remake a shot. To my surprise, I ended up really enjoying it. Although much of the original story had been changed, the characters and their relationships were still basically in tact. The changes that were made actually created a more interesting, scarier movie than the first.

So when I heard that they were doing a sequel, I was excited. I forgot to be wary though.

It was painful. The dialogue is horrible, the acting pathetic. The characters are shallow and underdeveloped-- and worse, they try to make up for that with one of the most embarrassing extras on the disc, the "character confessionals." Making it seem like the characters are being interviewed while in the house, they discuss their very obviously unscripted background, motives and opinions about the house. Whoever wrote this obviously never took a creative writing class, or they would have learned that you don't explain your characters to your audience, you *show* them.

Cliches abound, and not in an interesting way. They even changed the story-- again! This time, the change was a huge mistake. They took the movie in a different direction, and I was not along for the ride. I stood in the hallway saying, "But... no... you're supposed to go THIS way." One of my pet peeves is when movies take a story that speaks to the power of human evil, that demonstrates how people can be the scariest monsters of all, and tweaks it into a fantasy about ancient evil causing all the horror. When will they learn? Pointing and saying, "Here's the source of the evil! I found it! Now we know why this is happening!" makes it LESS SCARY. Especially when it doesn't make any sense.

If you can believe it, they even ripped off INDIANA JONES a little bit, in a completely laughable way. I was embarrassed for the people who made this movie, since they obviously have no shame.

The remake of HOUSE had so much going for it, compared to most remakes. They had a solid cast of very good actors, with a few delightful cameos. They took a story we already knew in a different direction that actually worked and intrigued the audience. They updated it in a believable way and gave us some pretty wild special effects and visuals-- the "darkness" aside, I wasn't crazy about that. The music they used was even really effective.

It just makes me sad that the sequel fell short. They tried to reveal everything without realizing that what they were showing us wasn't at all interesting.

This is probably the craziest thing I've ever said, but I really hope that somebody remakes this movie. It had so much potential, it literally pains me to see it fail.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Part 3

Season 2

Since the first season was so short, Season 2 of Buffy gives us more of a chance to learn about our main characters while we are introduced to a couple new individuals. The very first episode demonstrates just how deep and intense Buffy's contradicting feelings are regarding her life (including a beautifully done scene involving Buffy, Xander and Cibo Matto). It's obvious that she has a love/hate relationship with her role as the Slayer, but there's something so much more raw going on underneath that. It's only hinted at during most of the series, until the final season when we finally have a chance to understand how deeply Buffy is affected and how delicate a balance she keeps in her mind and heart. There's always a sense of loneliness about her-- the loneliness of leadership-- but I don't think anyone could foresee just how much she suffers and what a life as the Slayer has done to her.

Heading back into this season, one of my impressions when gazing at the episode list is one of amazement. How Buffy and her friends keep their sanity is beyond me. Around every corner there's some beast, ghoul, ghost, meanie, waiting to do something horrible. I know, it's the Hellmouth... and I know, we wouldn't have a show if that weren't the case... but looking at it realistically it's hard to imagine having to deal with that volume of eerie and dangerous incidents. Which makes the first point I made more and more understandable.

There are a few real gems in this season. The arch that drapes around the rest of the plot is Buffy's relationship with Angel. They fall in love and end up consummating their relationship which, unbeknownst to either party, releases Angel's soul. The real brilliance in this is David Boreanaz's ability to play two very different characters and how well he does it. You know without confirmation from other characters when he is Angelus and when he's Angel based on his body language and facial expressions alone. "Innocence" captures this really well.

Buffy is faced with double trouble: first of all, Angelus is back and dedicated to destroying her life and the people in it. Second, even if she did get him his soul back they could never have a complete relationship. The second matter is not explored as much in this season, although it certainly exists-- it will be a huge part of season 3's common thread.

One of the greatest episodes of the entire series happens to be in season 2, called "I Only Have Eyes for You." The way that the subplot of the episode layers perfectly with the general plot of the season is beautiful, and the story is touching. Like any of the best episodes, part of the reason this episode works so wonderfully is because of the music chosen. "Passion" is another episode in which music heightens the effect, although it also utilizes some philosophical narration by Angel which I thought really contributed to the message of the episode as a whole.

It being my favorite holiday, I have a soft spot for the Halloween episode in this season-- the first of the series. It's established here that apparently demons find it too tacky to do any bit of evil on Halloween, leaving Buffy supposedly without work for one night of her life. Of course this doesn't always happen, leading to the three Halloween episodes that do exist in the series. The other two are "All the Way" in season 6 and "Fear, Itself" in season 4.

By the end of season 2, Buffy is in the worst of spots. She's been expelled from school, the police are after her regarding Kendra's death, her mother finds out she's the Slayer and then basically kicks her out of the house, and worst of all she ends up killing Angel, even after Willow's spell to bring his soul back works. At the end of the last episode, Buffy leaves town. Once again, the burden of being the Slayer forces her (in her mind) into isolation.