The Obsession with Sita and Sight

This is phenomenal and you must read it. At a friend's baby shower recently, I met a fascinating dancer (don't you love it when your awesome friends have awesome friends?) and today I sat down and finally checked out her blog. Then! like a shot from above, a four part series about Sita, Mythology, Dance, Interpretation...Well, if you're reading my blog you are probably already sold.

I'd personally been drafting a post about Sita Sings the Blues for a bit, and I may still, the movie is great and the ballsy distribution strategy warms my heart. I'm definitely a mythology junkie, and this whole series on Dance, Sanskrit and Other Amazing Things is worth reading.

The entire legend of Sita is so steeped in ideas of virtue, motherhood, wife-hood, marriage, commitment, not to mention action packed ogre-slaying, and it still has so much to say about and to women today. What myths do you, dear readers, see influencing modern dialogues about womanhood? How are they being portrayed? and What would you like to see?

Also, taking note of "the ridiculous amount of performances/artwork obsessed with retelling stories, particularly from a female perspective", maybe Western Creators should take a good hard look at Asia and see what they can learn from some timeless female heroines.

The Obsession with Sita and Sight, Part 1

"What was this artistic obsession with giving women a voice through art? Where was it coming from?"

The Obsession with Sita and Sight, Part 2: Global Trends and Feminism

 "The fact that the female dominated dances are the only performing arts form that have taken steps in portraying the feminist point of view is a direct result of being one of the only female dominated profession in India."

The Obsession with Sita and Sight, Part 3: The Backlash and Traditional Values

"Why do so many of these reinterpretations deal with the Ramayana?. The reason for this is more than its popularity and lies in an inherent backlash against Sita. Sita, who threw herself into a fire when her husband questioned her purity. Sita, whose image could have been pointed to when a connection was needed to sati. Sita, whose image was pointed to when a woman decided to speak up in order to silence her. Sita, for all she was supposed to be an ideal of women, was in fact an oppressor during the independence movement. How can females of this age not blame her for so much of what happened to them during the independence movement?"

The Obsession with Sita and Sight, Part 4: The Indian Interpretation

"Interestingly enough, just as we rewrite the stories for our day and age, the people who rewrote Valmiki’s Ramayana also changed the story and storytelling aspects around completely to reflect the attitude of the time. With each rewrite, Ram’s character slowly evolved from man to demi God and Sita became less and less truculent."

"Mommy, You're Good at Killing Monsters."

The other day while my mother had taken my older daughter, B – 3 years old– to the park. I was bouncing my baby son and playing video games, like ya' do, and when the pair returned, my daughter exclaimed with unrestrained joy and excitement:

"Mommy, you're good at killing monsters!"

I was startled and laughed out loud because "Yes, I am good at killing monsters." 

Now,  let it be known that I am not going to start playing violent video games daily in front of my daughter, she's a little young for that and as she has begun exclaiming, there are even parts of Scooby-Doo that are scary. But! I was both startled and excited that her walking in on me slaughtering hell beasts was not a moment of panic, but a moment of awe at mommy's ability to vanquish the concerning monstrous horde.

As you know, I feel strongly about challenging and yes, frightening your audience. I am a firm believer that if you face a fear and deal with it psychologically in a safe place, like a child dealing with nightmares at home where mommy and daddy can help put it in context, you'll be more prepared to deal with them later on. That said, I'm not sneaking into my kids' room at night and yelling them awake either.

On mother's day B sat through her her first movie (more or less), and this was really quite exciting for me and my husband, it was Where the Wild Things Are, and she asked a lot of really compelling questions. She was very concerned with how everyone in the movie was feeling, why people were being not nice to one another and the obvious concern of many critics, that the movie simply "wasn't the same story as the book." Which it isn't.

 She was much more bothered by the older kids at the beginning of the movie who made Max cry than she was of the Wild Things themselves, as well as the "Mommy who was Mad-ic and yelling" (for some reason "Mad" is "Madic" in B-language: "Don't be Madic, Calm Down!". Though she did find them "scary" the monsters were really only monsterous to her when they were being "not nice".

The film, and her concern for these characters, had a much more lasting outward effect than walking in on me fighting off the legions of hell in a lava pit, but, what has stuck from that is asking me if I'm going to "kill monsters". I usually say no, because I want to play puzzles with her, or because I was actually going to watch a DVD with her and had picked up the controller, let's be honest, it's easier to do something with her in the moment than play a game then clean up the paint that got all over the floor because I was in the zone.

Overall, I like that B's first reaction was that Mommy was winning, she got very excited about it and cheered me on for several minutes before I decided to stop playing. I chose to stop because my arms were getting tired (bouncing a sleeping baby and working a controller is a surprisingly solid workout) but I'm glad I didn't immediately jump to shut off the console. If I can be a demon-vanquishing roll model to my baby girl, then I will take that and run with it.

I certainly am concerned about raising B to know that violence doesn't solve most problems, let's be fair, it solves the problems of ravening demons invading your cityscape in a video game. It was fun for me to be cheered on as I eviscerated the scary creatures that unflinchingly menaced my avatar as B yelled where they were coming from next. Afterwards, we all had a hearty cuddle and she was excited, not frightened by the experience.

I don't think I'll be letting her play Dead Space or BioShock any time soon, but maybe it's time we started thinking about a Wii.  I'd like her to feel she has the power to overcome scary characters, something I never got as a munchkin, I didn't play video games and the frighting spectres of childhood entertainment were never creatures I could interact with and vanquish on my own. Maybe if I'd been able to take on Freddie Kruger myself and overcome him in the video game setting, I would have been less plagued by nightmares. Or if I'd had the ability to control Jaws on a rampage I'd have been able to laugh him off a little more, I mean, I was hundreds of miles from the nearest large body of water.

 Waaaay less intimidating than my imagination.

The ability to interact directly with the characters who inhabit your nightmares is a gift, and one to which these new generations of kids have unique access. My three year old probably isn't old enough to meet Master Chief or take on the Locust with Marcus Fenix; but I think she's may be ready to be introduced to Mario.

Glee-Cap: On Absent Mothers...

A lot happened in last night's Glee, Dream On,


There was Neil Patrick Harris as a School-Board, Budget-Cutting, Show-Choir-Anonymous Used-Hummer Salesman. He had some great monologues.

It had Artie (who is in the wheelchair)  got 2 songs, one of which is big dance number.

But the biggest deal in Dream On is the introduction of an actual honest to goodness more than one episode story arc.

I was so shocked I had to slushie myself to snap out of it.

It's shocking, almost more shocking and entertaining that Sue Sylvester and Bryan Ryan's educational-value-off and follow-up anger sex... almost.

The Choir director of Vocal Adrenaline got Jesse St. James to infiltrate the Glee club in order to get to Rachel. I know, GASP!, no one saw that coming at all.

But why would she do this? not because she's just evil and conniving. Shelby Cocoran, The vocal coach of Vocal Adrenaline, the glee club of Carmel High School in Carmel, Ohio, is actually Rachel's MOTHER.

 Super Gasp!

I have to say, this episode made me care a bit more about Rachel, in no small part because Shelby cares about her so much. After watching so much damaged female behavior about pregnancy in the first half of the season seeing a mother who is legitimately trying to reach out to their child is touching and highly affecting.

Also, the emotional resonance really hits in the duet of "the saddest song ever" from Les Miserables, I Dreamed a Dream:



I can't wait to see what happens when they have two female characters with an actually meaty story to work with.

While the subject of motherhood deserves much more page-space than I'm going to give it in this post and I must admit that like the mothers in Glee the subject has been absent at The Mystery of Girls Media because taking on the media's portrayal of motherhood is a daunting task.

Let's cover it in Glee though, I can at least talk about that tonight. There are three mothers who have spoken at all on Glee.

Quinn –yes I'm counting Quinn even though the baby hasn't been born, who is giving up everything else that was important to her.

Mr. Schuster's sister-in-law– who was constantly egging on her sister into bigger lies and horrid behavior.

and Finn's Mom– who until Kurt set up with his dad had selflessly supported Finn single-handedly for over a decade, fighting depression and apparently, not asking anything for herself. I do not count Mrs. Schuster's hysterical pregnancy.

Other mom's have been mentioned, mostly in conjunction with nagging or not letting Quinn eat bacon (Puck's Mom). Kurt's mom, who is dead, has felt pretty tangible in his conversations with his father.  But ultimately, this is the first time a mother has gotten real screen-time, and she has been absent from her child's life for 16 years.

A lot of stories feature absent mothers, or don't feature them, or.... whatever, the point is the mother is just not there. why is that? Is there a perception or anticipation that all the world's problems are solved if the mother is present? That puts a lot of stress on moms when they're just people like everyone else, and motherhood is hard. While I don't disagree that the mom's on the show are generally doing the right thing by their kids I do fear that because they're in the background, they might get forgotten and become caricatures rather than characters as has befallen so many maternal characters before them.

And I don't want them too disappear, you've set up some pins, Glee, knock them down.

To hear me rant about things that aren't Glee, follow me on Twitter: Caitlin_Burns and check in next week when Ra Ra Ruh hah haaaa! LADY GAGA! You can bet money on the fact I'll be talking about adornment, I know, you can't wait.

Later Gleeks.