I’m going to admit right here and now that Jeanne Beker is a bit of a hero of mine. It’s no secret that I am a big fan of fashion, and ever since I was younger I admired how the Canadian television personality, author and newspaper columnist could glide effortlessly into a runway show and chat up every Vogue editor and designer as if she was their best friend from high school. For the fashionistas among us, watching Beker have a casual chat with Valentino or Betsey Johnson is simply a joy to behold.

Beker’s got a pretty amazing professional history. She launched the ground-breaking music magazine show The NewMusic the same year I was born, was honorary chair of Toronto’s annual Fashion Cares and Gilda’s Club, and she was honoured with the prestigious Crystal lifetime achievement award by Women in Film and Television. She’s covered fashion and lifestyle news for Citytv, FashionTelevisionChannel and The Globe and Mail, and regardless of what you think of fashion as an industry, you have to admit she’s certainly a well-respected journalist in her field who is consistently doing groundbreaking work in mainstream women’s media.

And now she’s a Bratz doll.(more inside…)

Forgive the intense subject line, but this is the question that Audacia Ray had to face from mainstream media jerkos who were interviewing her on the Spitzer scandal in New York state. (It was off-air, but nonetheless off-putting.)

And why is it a nasty question? Well no sex worker wants to be called a whore, especially by some big shot who is about to control how the entire country is going to see you, your work and activism. Let’s just say there is a power differential going on, since sex workers have little to gain from public exposure and just about everything to lose.

And this same media industry also trafficks in representations of sex workers that only deal with the following images: dead hookers, exploitation, trafficking, arrests, and good girls gone bad…few of which truly give voice to the experiences of sex workers. Audacia has a great blog post on why sex workers aren’t accurately represented in the mainstream media, which she read to much acclaim at the WAM! conference session on Sex Workers and Media Representation this past weekend. I love the last line of this post.

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For those of you in Ottawa concerned about the state of child care in this country, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is hosting an event on Tuesday you should check out.

From the press release:
Multinational child care corporations, including Australian giant ABC
Learning, are moving into Canada. Corporate-run child care will damage
high-quality, community-based non-profit early learning and child care
–and threaten the future of a pan-Canadian system.

Learn more and find out what you can do at this free event. (more inside…)

This post is best introduced by this video testimony by a woman worker who was detained as part of the New Bedford sweatshop raid in Massachusetts:

In this particular raid, 361 people were detained and the majority were women. Many of these women are mothers and pregnant women; at least two pregnant women were deported without delay.

The mainstream and also the feminist media isn’t really talking about these raids and other important human rights stories about immigration in the U.S.

Why? Why are these stories ignored when these raids are happening all over the US? When this continent is a dangerous place for immigrant women? When immigrant women are being “disappeared”, detained indefinitely, denied access to health care, torn from their families, deported without seeing a lawyer or a judge? Why?
(more inside…)

A number of writers, editors and artists involved with Shameless are in Boston this weekend at the Women, Action and the Media! conference. Watch for breaking news from the feminist media world on the blog this weekend!

I am planning on attending the following sessions so watch for my blog posts on these topics:
1. Immigration: The Women’s Rights Crisis Feminists Aren’t Talking About
2. Sex Workers and Media Representation
3. Can Blogging End Racism?

Woman told to remove nipple ring, with pliers.

For my Film Friday this week, I’m offering not a review or a critique, but a Shameless Exclusive. A friend directed me to this short video made by New York artist and musician Jessica Segall. It’s a history of corn told in shadow-puppetry - a fine mix of art, history, politics, oh and just a little sci-fi. (Of course, if you think about it, lots of food-politics stuff is way more Twilight Zone than Rod Serling’s most out-there fantasy.) Hope you enjoy. And eat those Corn Pops while you can, because after this you may never again.

Drop in on Jessica Segall and her band here.

This movie has been getting a lot of buzz lately and that usually means I probably won’t see it. But on the insistence of my most trusted movie critic friends I took the plunge.

Its hard to write about this film without spoiling some of its gentle power but I’ll try my best. The first thing I would say is don’t watch the trailer. As with most trailers it tries to sell a different idea of what this film is about. At its heart this is a movie about two things, two people and the music they share. Its kind of a musical but not in the cheesy way that musicals actually tell the story with song. The music scenes in Once just paint the emotional landscape and deepen our sense of the characters lives. It has to be said that if you hate the music you probably won’t like the movie that much. You can hear some of the music here…

But the most profound aspect of Once is the way it defies romantic cliches and portrays both main characters as complex, interesting human beings who you can actually imagine liking each other.

As Shameless has written before, this is a rare occurrence. I can’t actually remember seeing another film that has its love interests be so respectful and gentle with each other while they actually get to know each other in a genuine way. I can’t stand it when the “hottest” people in a movie meet and you immediately know that they are going to end up in bed together. Soon after this you watch the standard music montage that shows a couple walking on the beach, playing in the park, eating in a diner, etc, etc, blah blah. This is supposed to let you know that they now know each other well and like each other a lot. But you don’t really know why they like each other (especially because I usually don’t like either of them) or what they know about each other.

While you might think that watching two people actually be nice to each other might not make for interesting movie watching, I found Once to be an engaging and enjoyable film.

Understated, uncomplicated and satisfying without a Hollywood ending I would recommend this film to anyone who is tired of one-dimensional women and men playing out the same scenes again and again on screen.

Ok, so some might claim I’m just fishing for excuses to post this ridiculous video, but I swear, there’s something feminist about this one.

On a Cincinnati news show the weather reporter Bob Herzog throws a dance party every Friday morning that there are no traffic accidents. From the Globe and Mail:

The concept is simple: When there’s no traffic news on Friday morning – which happens regularly in Cincinnati, population 332,000 – it’s dance-party time in front of the traffic map…The phenomenon started last year when a friend showed Mr. Herzog a funny YouTube clip of high-school kids celebrating a “Dance Party Friday.”

…And thus, Dance Party Friday was born. There are ground rules, which Mr. Herzog discussed with his boss at the start: He dances only when there are no tragic stories in the news and no accidents on the road.

If you’re having trouble picturing this:

For me, a big part of why this video is funny is because it’s grown men in suits dancing badly. They’re so cheerfully making fools of themselves and in a sense, rejecting the expectations of seriousness, and taciturn professionalism, that we normally associate with grown men in suits.

And to me this video isn’t just funny, it’s also kind of exhilarating. Because who hasn’t wanted to shake their booty (or scream, or throw something heavy and possibly flaming…) in the face of workplace demands - demands which often include dehumanising ourselves, and following stringent gender guidelines on how to behave.

Do you hear distant cries of revolution? No? Ok, well at least enjoy the video. And if you want more, go here.