"DZI CROQUETTES"
Director: Raphael Alvarez and Tatiana Issa
Trevor's Rating: 4.5 / 5 Stars
What a charming film! Many of you will be familiar with The Cockettes, San Francisco's infamous drag troupe that ruled in the 1960s and 70s. Less of you will be familiar with Brazil's amazing counterpart, "Dzi Croquettes" (a title they came up with while eating the French fried food). The director Tatiana Issa's father worked as part of the group's technical staff, and she grew up with the troupe around them. There is clearly a lot of love packed into this gem of a movie, with each of the 13 cast members getting due attention and care.
This is both a feature and a flaw of the film, and it's inherent in documentary making. So many stories to tell. So little time to tell it in. But I cannot fault the film for it, for the stories are so incredible that I cannot imagine having to cut any of them. The troupe had a long and fiery road to fame, with plenty of fights and trists and romances along the way. Their performance style is simply uncanny -- a kind of pastiche of numerous genres that come together to create something fabulously unfamiliar, exciting, and totally queer. It's not like the drag you see on Ru Paul's LOGO show. It's performance art.
What is particularly incredible is that they came into fruition at a tumultuous time for Brazil: an oppressive dictatorship whose grip on the nation was ever-tightening. The film specifically sites the impact of AI-5 (Ato Institucional Número Cinco), which shut down Congress and suspended many civil rights. The government had no way of understanding the Croquettes -- their performances were not explicitly against the regime, and thus they managed to slip under the radar and convince the government that they were harmless. Given the censorship that was going on at the time in Brazil, this is truly amazing.
Liza Minelli -- of all people! -- was instrumental in bring the group international acclaim. She helped them secure precious media coverage after she had seen them in Brazil. She's always a wonder to watch on screen, and it was really very generous of her to make time to be interviewed for this piece. Even Josephine Baker herself had a hand in bringing the Croquettes fame: Before she died, she told the theatre owner that they should take over her spot at the show. Just a few days later, she died on stage. The theatre owner kept her wish, and their run at Paris was hugely successful.
I'm dying to get my hands on a video of once of their performances. They're truly incredible. In this trailer below for the film, you'll get a taste. Get your hands on this wonderful film if you can! Enjoy!
Oh, Trevi! Your post on how annoying it is to have to decipher the sense of the word "problematic" when it is actually used as one of these hypocritical detours to express a disagreement in a gentle, almost clandestine way, reminded me of a cultural gap between French and American people in terms of holding a conversation and expressing oneself publicly.
Of course these are only my subjective thoughts, based on just four years spent in the golden cage of Ann Arbor, Michigan, so who I am to speak in the name of French people and to make some highly disputable generalizations about American folks? Well, this previous statement is actually symptomatic of what I want to share with you: the need to put some rhetorical lube before expressing a personal opinion so that, in case of a debate, or a disagreement, I already anticipate a space for modifying my opinion and reaching an agreement - and saving my ass.
I noticed this tendency, in America, to be careful when you are about to speak up your mind. You are encouraged to be sincere, of course, but people tend to formulate their opinions with a rhetoric that reflects flexibility and humble skepticism. In my experience, the American conversation relies on the use of conditional -- like "I would say" or "I would think" -- or the seemingly ever-recurring "maybes" and euphemistic expressions (the word "problematic" is one of these euphemisms). That's what I call "rhetorical lube." You don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by expressing yourself. Rather, you want to make sure you're still being seen as a sociable, smiling, constructive person. A "team player."
Thinking about this rhetoric, and contrasting it with the way French people tend to express themselves, I was struck by a cultural gap. In France, we tend to be much more explicit than American people, straight to the point, without fear of inciting an intense conversation or an argument. When you look for a job in France, you do not have to prove how sociable and friendly you can be, how compatible you are with many different kinds of people, and how careful you are to respect everyone's sensibility. In other words, you are expected to be polite, but you are also expected to have a personality and not to fear conflict when defending your beliefs. In America, people tend to be careful to avoid personal conflicts. They do their best to avoid being labeled "defensive" because others might perceive them as deviating from the politically correct, mainstream, and utterly safe opinions that circulate in everyday life.
That's when it becomes more than just an issue of rhetoric. Let me articulate here a political interpretation on why would French people be less concerned about conflicts, about being loud on their beliefs, whereas Americans would tend to value courteous dialogue and constructive behavior. I propose that, more than just a matter of different rhetorical styles, these differences have political roots. In France, even if you're a poor worker, you can still rely on the nanny state in terms of having access to a free, high quality health system. And if you think you were fired for unfair reasons, you can rely on the free Prud'hommes system in order to sue your boss and reclaim a compensation for any abuse of power. The same for education: you don't have to plan a huge budget for your kids because in France most of the schools, including the most prestigious and elitist ones, are not expensive and do not select their students by the financial profile of their parents.
Of course I am not convinced myself by what I wrote (Bourdieu would spit on my face), France is far from being a paradise, deficits are huge and nobody seems to be willing to quote us as a model. On top of that I came to the University of Michigan to start a PhD precisely because the conditions for studying and the resources here are just outstanding, so let me rephrase my opinion in a less stereotypical way: in spite of all the drawbacks of the French nanny state, of all the big lies on the French egalitarian system in terms of education and public health insurance, it still remains obvious than French people, in comparison to American people, are not afraid of being often on strike, of suing their bosses, and of having a big argument in public when they feel they are right!
I want to interpret this as the political consequence of knowing that, in case of cancer, or of unemployment, you know you can rely on the nanny state for support. On the contrary, I think that if Americans are so concerned about being seen as sociable and not defensive, it is because in their contemporary society, they can only rely on themselves and think twice before taking a risk. You live constantly on loans. We don't. You have to deal with an army of lawyers to protect yourself or attack the others, we don't. That is a big, huge, significant difference. You have much more to lose when you rely on yourself, so you think twice before speaking up your mind. And the Fox News constant brainwashing on "don't forget to live with fear" does not help at all. It only confirms the dynamics of a safe, selfish individualism!
Just thought I'd share this (definitely NSFW) video intended for a lesbian audience. It was posted on French lesbian and gay website www.yagg.com. For those of you who do not read French, you can find a translation of the very few subtitles on this website. I do not think that anyone will have the least difficulty getting the point anyway ;)
I am very excited by three movies which will compete for an Oscar in the best foreign language film this year: I am thinking of the German movie The White Ribbon, the French movie A Prophet and the Canadian movie I Killed My Mother. Each one of these movies can be interpreted and appreciated as a queer delight in spite of their numerous differences in both style and content! Here are some thoughts on each of them.
Let's start with The White Ribbon, directed by Haneke and already rewarded by the prestigious Palme d'or this year. Haneke, trained as a philosopher and haunted since his first movies by the subjects of evil, lost innocence and eroticism, has the well deserved reputation of being a Master in the realm of perversions. In The White Ribbon, certainly inspired by the crossed readings of Un Roi Sans Divertissement and Le Roi des Aulnes, Haneke takes us for a visit in lost, rural pre-WW1 German village where Puritan adults live hard social life ruled by professional submission and religious devotion. The adults living in this small, isolated community do their best to educate children and teach them the love of pure love, and the passion of truth, sincerity and decency.
The second movie, A Prophet, directed by Audiard, was sometimes introduced as a French Scarface (or anti-Scarface) because of its focus on an ethical odyssey instead of a gangster narrative starting with the rise and fall of an ambitious, smart outlaw. Malik is a young orphan who enters jail at 19 and doesn't know much about prison as a social universe with its values and rules. "Recruited" by a gang (the Corsicans), his initiation starts by a startling mission: he is ordered to kill with a razor Reyed, member of the other gang (the Muslims). Although Malik is an Arabic boy, and he should be expected to join the Muslim community, he is elected by the racist Corsican boss, Cesar, as a potentially brilliant recruit. And indeed, little by little, Malik takes up difficult challenges, learns how to speak Corsican and gain Cesar's trust, and becomes in the end smarter and stronger than his defeated boss.
If A Prophet was just the story of the social ascension of a gangster, it would be an excellent action movie, but thank you God it happens to be, on top of that, as I mentioned earlier, an ethical odyssey - more precisely the quest for dignity, autonomy and respect in the corrupted, ultra violent, ultra masculine universe of prison. Malik kills Reyeb as he was told, slaughtering him with a small razor blade, because inside his mind he has to live with a troubled consciousness, haunted by the spectre of Reyeb in his mind, and starts living with him after having killed him in the most disgusting way and against his will. Before being killed, Reyed had told Malik that he would be willing to give him some pot to smoke if Malik was willing to give him a blow job. When Malik visits Reyeb in his cell, hiding his razor in his mouth, he wants to start blowing him but Reyeb stops him, postpones the blow job and prefers to start talking in a friendly, paternalistic way, suggesting Malik he could use his time to read and increase the freedom of his soul while being in jail. All of a sudden the revolting side of the blow job as a prostitution thing in order to get some weed turns into an opening space for solidarity, exchange and trust. But malik has a mission to accomplish and, as his mouth starts bleeding, he kills Reyeb without sparing us with gore and sighs. If pedagogy in Ancient Greece was pederastic, the aborted relationship between Reyeb and Malik was opening a queer space in which a young straight boy was to be initiated to a sexual friendship with an "older brother" willing to share his sperm and knowledge as a specific training. Malik did not kill Reyeb because he was against this special bondage but because he would have been killed himself if he did not accomplish his mission. Once Reyeb is killed, Malik learns how to live with him, not just the spectre of his bad consciousness but also the humanist light, acting like a guide and a close friend in the competitive and stressful context of gang wars. If Malik, in the end, takes his revenge against Cesar, it is not merely a question of power struggle, but the payment of an ethical debt he had vis-Ã -vis Reyeb: the ghost, the missing father, the older brother, the taboo lover, definitely the queer friend.
Two days ago, I was thrilled that I am going back to France soon (see below) : well, it did not last very long ! Sad news today from my country, and even from my hometown. Julien Bobot, a (so-called) socialist politician, who was 10th arrondissement of Paris deputy major has just resigned, because pedopornographic pictures were found on his computer.
As far as I can say, Julien Bobot is a 34 year old straight man, he is married and has kids. I should also specify that I am not a member of his party, that I do not know him (although I met him a couple of times about 10 years ago), and that although he is a member of the leading (so-called) left party in France, I clearly consider myself to be a political opponent to it.
However, I cannot help but be outraged by his story, and by the 10th arrondissement Major accepting his resignation. He is the victim of a system that keeps refusing to make a couple of elementary distinctions when it comes to pedophilia, including the one between pedophiliac fantasy and pedophiliac acts. He is not accused of having had actual sexual encounters with kids, let alone raped them. He is only accused of having downloaded pictures on his computer from the internet; these picture show, I assume, naked kids or kids masturbating or maybe having sex. But it is not enough for our media, justice and government to control what people actually do, they also need to control what one sees and fantacizes about.
Sorry to clutter up the blog with all these news from France, but there is another great news today, and a historical one : French Minister of Health, Roselyne Bachelot, has just decided to remove transexualism from the list of mental disorders.
Why now? In 2005, my dear friend (and ex roommate) Louis-Georges Tin (who was also the editor of a wonderful Dictionary of Homophobia that has been translated into English in 2008) launched an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) that is celebrated every year on May 17th (because it was on May 17th, 1990 that homosexuality was removed from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems by the World Health Organisation - the ICD is an international equivalent of the US DSM -- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). This event is being celebrated in more than 50 countries and has been officially recognized by several governments.
I must confess to having been sometimes skeptical about the advances that might result from an emphasis on "phobias" of any kind, rather than on "pride." Yet, I must also admit that I was wrong and that yesterday's decision of the French Minister of Health is a clear outcome of this International Day. Indeed, every year, Idaho picks up a specific topic and the 2009 one was transphobia. Therefore there is not the slightest shadow of a doubt that French Minister's decision, which was announced two days before May 17th, is related to the event. So, to Louis-Georges and the many activists who run this celebration : CONGRATS!
(For those of you who may be interested in my criticism of some French gay association's reaction to this news, just go to my blog... It is French stuff maybe of little interest for US readers)
On May 15th, a sort of French Supreme Court (I am sure many lawyers would sue me or kill me for that comparison !) named Conseil d'Etat (State Council) has quashed the legal ban on poppers.
The decree banning poppers dated back to November 22, 2007. It provided that both the making and the selling of poppers were forbidden. As you can imagine, this decree gave rise to a deluge of mourning among gay men! (Of course, we still had the option of ordering them online from other countries : sometimes globalization is really a blessing, isn't it?)
However, before that decree, most (and best !) poppers were already illegal, because they were too strong. Jungle Juice, Blue Boy, and the like were only available online, and you had to order them from other countries.
So the good news is that poppers are legal again in France, although I am not sure which poppers are going to be legal. The decision issued yesterday explicitly says that if there are dangers associated with the inhalation of poppers, they are rare and happen only when the poppers are consumed in unusual ways; therefore, Judges said, the French Prime Minister's banning them was obviously a disproportionate decision, and he failed to prove that nothing but a total interdiction would solve the problem !
Let us send some bottles to the judges: they deserve them, don't they?
My friend Maxime has introduced me to the outrageous work of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, who's 1984 video for "Love on the Beat" features ridiculous gruntings and ecstatic cries from his supposed sex partner (he's also famous for the duet he did with his daughter in which they sang lewdly about their theoretical incestuous encounter). It's pretty amazing stuff. The video features him bizarrely pointing around to the beat of his song, and drinking himself silly in a bar. It's strange, to say the least. But I love this song. It makes me die laughing every time I hear it. In any case, here's the video for "Love on the Beat":
The French gay magazine Têtu has just published an article on tops and bottoms featuring an interview with your's truly!
In a very sad twist to the story, however, the author -- Sylvain Rouzières -- tragically committed suicide last week just after the magazine went to press. He was a friend of a friend, which is how I got hooked up for the interview, and I know I'm not alone in saying that he will be missed sorely.
If you can read French, you can download a PDF of the article that I've scanned here. Here's an image of the sections in which I'm quoted. If you can't read French, basically I'm just saying that desire and sexual identities are socially constructed. And no, I don't speak French either. He translated the interview from English to French!
To celebrate my French friend Rostom's birthday, me and some friends are headed down to Chicago for a week of fabulousness. Expect some fun photos to come! Yay!!! I can't wait to get the FUCK out of Ann Arbor! Even if the high temp in Chicago tomorrow is supposed to be 10 degrees. Sigh. Can't win 'em all! At least it'll be snow-free.
I had the unfortunate task of enduring Lagerfeld Confidential, an alleged "insider's" view of the world of Karl Lagerfeld -- Chanel's chief designer for the past 20 years. It's pathetic. He's clearly a megalomaniac who insisted on editing out unflattering footage caught by the sycophant director. In the entire film, not a single person speaks about Karl, probably for fear of his wrath. It's just a series of rambling life-isms from Karl attempting to appear intellectual and visionary. Instead, he comes off as quite trite and uninspired. Perhaps most outrageous: his claim that he does not like marriage because it's an institution of the "bourgeosie," a class he would not wish us to ape. More outrageous: his claim that he not materialistic. It was a dissapointment. I had hoped someone so eccentric would have made for a more interesting subject for a documentary. I was wrong!
Armed robbers -- some dressed as women -- have stolen an estimated €80 million ($102m) in jewels during a brazen raid at a central Paris store, police say..
Police told The Associated Press three or four thieves swiped rings, necklaces and luxury watches from display cases at the Harry Winston store near the Champs-Elysees.
The store is also just around the corner from a police station.
Police said at least two of the thieves were men dressed as women, they spoke a foreign language and knew the employees' names.
Between 10 and 15 people and staff were in the store when the robbers entered late Thursday afternoon.
CNN's Jim Bittermann said staff first thought they were clients. However, the robbers then drew their guns.
He said the robbers directed staff to empty jewels from secret hiding places and the safe.
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They overturned display cases and emptied the shop of nearly all its stock.
The store is situated on the fashionable Avenue Montaigne and was robbed little more than a year ago.
Canadian comedy duo "The Masked Avengers" -- from CKOI 96.9 FM in Montreal -- prank called Sarah Palin and convinced her that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was on the line. Oy vey!
What an adventured I had yesterday on the Huron River! The weather is miraculously still warm enough here in Ann Arbor to have allowed Maxime, Rostom and I an afternoon of leisure on the river. It was a *ridiculous* afternoon. Rostom has no shame, and was prone to hollering at hot boys (see photos and video below) -- offering them candies or other treats if they came closer.They must have recognized him for the siren he is, as they never dared to come closer than a few feet. We even serenaded two hotties who were canoeing near us for the trip back. No really, we have video to prove it. I shot a few different short videos -- all funny in their own light -- but I've only posted three here for your enjoyment!
Singing "All By Myself" to the hot boys in the canoe ahead of us. Amazing!
Commenting on Maxime's butch shoes and coaxing him on -- and then screaming like queens when I realize we're headed into the "Satanic Mudpitt," when Rostom shifts his weight and the boat tilts, we all scream!
We got stuck in some muck, but we got out. And then Rostom and I continue our discussion of Michael Warner's concept of heteronormativity, in particular considering the way it gets taken up by activists / thinkers who misinterpret it to mean a lazy critique of that which is heterosexual:
I had a lovely discussion today with two fellow Michigan graduate students tonight. One is from Paris and in the French department, the other is British and in the Philosophy department. Our long, outrageous conversation fell back on three central questions which I think all of my work is concerned with:
1) What power do we have over our own desires? Can we change them if we want to?
2) Is organizing around marginalized identities reinscribing our own subordination? (this related to Wendy Brown's argument in "Wounded Attachments")
3) If identity is no longer useful as a rubric for gay and lesbian organizing, then what model should replace it?
Time Magazine has a report on several new studies that indicates men experience a loss of fertility as they age -- just like women do -- and that older paternal age is associated with risks such as bipolar disorder. This of course flies in the face of common attitudes towards fertility that see infertility primarily as a woman's problem. Apparently as much as a 50% of infertility may be due to men, not women:
Not only do men become less fecund as they age, but their fertility begins to decline relatively early — around age 24, six years or so before women's. Historically, infertility has been seen as a female issue, as has the increased risk of Down syndrome and other birth defects, but studies now also link higher rates of autism, schizophrenia and Down syndrome in children born to older fathers. A recent paper by researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institute found that the risk of bipolar disorder in children increased with paternal age, particularly in children born to men age 55 or older.
It used to be that "if you had hair on your chest, it was your wife's problem," says Barry Behr, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Stanford Medical School and director of Stanford's in vitro fertilization laboratory. Even now, he said, though about half of infertility cases are caused by male factors, such as low sperm count or motility, there are many more tests to evaluate a woman's fertility than a man's.
You can find the Swedish study on bipolar disorder here, and the French study on age and pregnancy rates here.
And PS: isn't that photo of a microscope sold in Japan AMAZING? Thanks to Gizmodo for that. Notice not just the happy sperm, but also the DEAD sperm on the box. How amazing!
First, can I just say, God bless I need a life! You know you're a graduate student when you wake up from a dream in which you were sitting in a seminar discussing the ins and outs of sexual identity politics. I believe I was embarrassed because I made a bit of an anti-queer gaffe, talking about gay and lesbian identities and sarcastically saying, "as if there were any other options?" I believe this is all coming from a review I've been writing for Culture, Health, and Sexuality, where I do a bit of bashing of "queer theory."
The other half of the dream? I was in France with friends, headed to Nice on a train that was as wide as a freighter. It was a giant complex, with various restaurants, bars, and shops. If only it were true! I've been a bit anti-tourism lately, feeling a bit confused about why people travel 1000s of miles and spend 1000s of dollars to have experiences relatively similar to their own at home -- and experiences that (in almost all cases) do not resemble those of the people who live there. I was chatting the other day with my British friend Nat about this very phenomenon, and we decided that it a murky issue ethically, but that knowing a local and having them as an entree into the culture could make for a more meaningful experience. In the dream, I was headed to Nice with my friend Maxime, who is from France and was going to show me around.
Sigh. Now to start my day. First, a meeting for my graduate student instructorship (GSI) orientation class. Some of you may be more familiar with the "teaching assistant (TA)" terminology, but grad students are unionized here at Michigan so we fought for a more PC term. From there I go to the Women's Studies Welcome luncheon, where I will present with my friend Mira the schedule for monthly happy hours that we spent last night carefully designing. Then on to a very ominous sounding meeting with the chairs of Sociology and Women's Studies, all the joint SOC/WOMST grads, the current graduate program director, and all the previous program directors. Eesh. I hope we leave with an official graduate program to refer to still.
Love this French commercial for Hansaplast condoms. Apparently it's four years old, but it feels totally current! If only this kind of stuff could happen in the US without people flipping their shit!
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Pam's House Blend
She's a fabulous North Carolinian blogging about politics, LGBT and women's rights, the influence of the far Right, and race relations. What more can I say?
