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Marching in Solidarity from My HomeI am a woman who lives in the Washington DC, but did not attend the Women’s March on Washington. But from the minute that I saw a Facebook event be created about the Women’s March on Washington to the very moment that I was at home watching it on TV, I have felt nothing more than completely involved with the rally to stand up for human’s rights, love, and peace. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Please Stop Making Feminism All About Men By Kate Hickey QuailBellMagazine.com How we're used to seeing Emma Watson being a badass. I admit I teared up a little while I watched the video of Emma Watson’s lovely speech at the U.N. As a life-long fan of Harry Potter, I felt an immense surge of pride for her. She is doing exactly what Hermione Granger would do. Her speech was detailed, intelligent, and passionate, and I felt the utter sincerity in her words when she said, “I care about this problem.” I felt joy and relief when she outright stated that she lives in a space of privilege. I could tell that Emma Watson knew what she was talking about and believed wholeheartedly in what she was saying. But unfortunately, this speech was not as “game-changing” as the clickbait of Internet news media led me to believe.
Much of Watson’s speech was agonizing the way it structured gendered inequalities. In particular, when Watson pointed out that freeing men from gender roles would, by consequence, free women, I was actually quite angry. Again the need to put men first—by this logic, men must be freed from patriarchy and then women can be free. No. That is not equality. That is not what feminism is working towards. Feminists are not here to free men and then be freed afterwards. It is about freeing everyone, in the same instant, from the toxic cesspool that is the gender binary. By making feminism about saving men, it inverts the entire idea. Feminism is about the equality between the genders/sexes and the reason that there is not equality is because men oppress women. They are not oppressing themselves when they reject socially coded feminine qualities like empathy, compassion, or passivity. They certainly are harming themselves, as Watson points out, but it is not the job of women to protect men from the negative consequences of patriarchy. Women already have enough crap to deal with in relation to negative consequences of patriarchy. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
"Sí” and “Aye," Entwined I remember sitting in my sixth grade classroom poised to take a standardized test. My big, curly hair sat in a high ponytail. My light olive hand clutched a pencil. The florescent lights might as well have been a spotlight. Before the test began, I was faced with every multicultural child's fear: the question of choosing my race or ethnicity.
My mother hails from El Salvador and my father is not too many generations removed from the Orricks who ventured from Scotland to Cumberland, Maryland in the 1800s. That would make me Salvadorian-Scottish-American, a Hispanic white-mestizo mix. But that's rarely an option on such surveys and it certainly wasn't in the year 2000. A more accurate survey would allow users to select "Hispanic" as an ethnicity and then something else as a race. There are plenty of black and white Hispanics, for example, not just mestizos—people of mixed European and Amerindian descent, the race that describes most Latin Americans. Of course, mestizo is virtually never an option. When it is, the word is usually lumped in with “Hispanic.” Not that I'm the biggest fan of such a prying question in the first place, but if you're going to ask it, at least lay out all the possible choices. As a Salvadorian-Scottish-American, the issue of “choice” is first in my mind these days. In print, on the airwaves, and online, the debates on how to handle the mass immigration of Central American children into the United States and whether Scotland should vote for independence seem to speak directly with my rational and emotional sides. And both of those sides believe that the Scotts and Central Americans deserve the power of choice. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
¡A celebrar!It's National Hispanic Heritage Month, a time to recognize the achievements of Hispanic leaders and communities across the United States. We're kicking it off with this original illustration: #Real #NationalHispanicHeritageMonth #HispanicHeritage #HispanicPride #HispanicCulture #Latinos #Diversity #Fall Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Picking Out School Clothes I was upset that my mom left to work without laying out my school clothes. She always left them at the foot of my bed. Huffing and puffing, I looked around the room and under my bed, but they weren't there. Then I heard three voices coming from my parent's bedroom next door: my Dad's, the reporter on the television, and my Mom's.
Thank God Mom is still here. Maybe she isn't going to work. Maybe I can fake sick to stay home with her today. With my best fake cough and sick face I made a grand entrance into my parents room...but they didn't notice me. Their eyes were glued to the TV. I coughed again. Shock and awe...at the TV that is. What are they looking at? I walked over to my parents so that I could see the TV. Two burning buildings and the words "Terrorist Attacks" flashed across the screen. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Art vs. Porn—the debate continues!
So some photographer, Wyatt Neumann, took his two-year-old daughter on a cross-country trip, took some photos of her in her birthday suit. And we might have never known about these photos except that he came under some fire. People thought he was a pervert and a child molester. An article in The Huffington Post claims just the opposite: He is an artist and purveyor of beautiful and chivalrous things other than pornography, if that's even possible.
So what did the photographer father do about the controversy? If you guessed open up a gallery show of his photographs and share the story with several media outlets, then you are correct! Many of Wyatt Neumann's defenders would like to turn the accusations on his critics, suggesting that they themselves are the ones validating the images as pornography. Some people have pulled the "whoever smelt it, dealt it" card on this debate, as if that carries some relevance in the adult world. In my opinion, this is a typical clash of the "Of course! But maybe…" scenarios worth dissecting. As in: "Of course his critics are themselves child perverts! Why else would they find these images of a two-year-old girl pornographic? But maybe…they are more interested in keeping the child safe from actual perverts." Conversely, there is also: "Of course the father is just interested in preserving memories of his daughter's youthful innocence, and he just so happened to be a professional photographer! But maybe…he could have kept these photos private and never posted them online…" Chances are that many of his critics are not child pornography enthusiasts themselves, and they may not even be concerned parents. Some may just believe that any nude image of a child is a good nude image for an adult who likes child pornography. So, even if the photos are not risque, and I certainly don't think they are, they're still accessible to those who would see them like that. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Questionable Club CultureEditor's Note: This open letter addresses an incident that took place at Fallout, a fetish club in Richmond, Virginia on August 30, 2014 but, due to its nature, is of national concern and inspires the sort of conversations The Quail Bell Crew believes should take place all over the world. Photo: Shockoe Design Group. I’d like to say, first and foremost, that I love Fallout. Richmond's only serious goth and fetish club is one of the first places I felt safe expressing my queerness, my kinkiness, my gender identity. They elected a transwoman as Miss Fallout in 2010. They had an explicit “no touching without consent” policy. They had a mixed drink named after the community’s favorite lesbian couple. I knew that these were the kind of people I could be safe around, people who got it. And so it pains me to say what I have to say next. What happened there on August 30th makes me question whether I ever want to go back again. For those of you who don’t know the story, here are the basics: 1. It was Doomsday, a local favorite event that brings in a lot of new people every year. It’s an End of the World party, with lots of dancing and craziness. A great time all around. 2. The theme this year was some kind of unspecified Intolerant Apocalypse. In past years, themes have included raptures and zombies. This year, the theme appeared to be something along the lines of Fourth Reich. It’s unclear whether or not the club’s owners and employees knew about this in advance, but volunteering regulars made the decorations, including several signs. 3. Normally when the club does events that might be...uh, scary for some people, they advertise heavily what the theme of that night is going to be. If it’s medical play night, they plaster up some warnings. It’s a fetish club, of course it’s going to have themes that not everyone is comfortable with. But… The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Hot Tea and Kullaj Lured by the glowing red store signs, I pulled into the dim parking lot. I sat for a minute after parking and scanned the scene. A couple of groups dined outside. Taxi drivers stood by their
cabs, talking, laughing, and smoking. Although I was far from alone, I expected to see more people milling around. The shopping center next door had been teeming with customers busy with their back to school rounds. While casually walking about, I had nearly bumped into overwhelmed mothers on two or three separate occasions. Here, there seemed to be more cars than human beings. The businesses must all have backrooms and basements, I told myself, or these are mostly employees' cars. At 9 p.m. on a Friday, the small suburban shopping center should've been pulsing with excitement. Known for its Middle Eastern businesses, the shopping center sat right next to a mosque and several apartment buildings full of Muslim families. That night the shopping center pulsed with a different kind of energy, one I could not yet articulate. I grabbed my purse and stepped out because my stomach had reached the end of its patience. The last days of summer were upon us. Clouded by lights, I couldn't see a single star in the sky, which made me think of how some of the patrons might've grown up in the desert, far from any city. The parking lot wasn't filled with sand, just grit from the road and people's shoes. Since there were a couple of restaurants open, I wanted to consider my options. I went into the lobby of Jerusalem Cafe and picked up the paper menu. It was full of enticing photos of dishes I could practically smell. I barely had a chance to read when a waiter opened the inner door and said, “Don't think twice about it.” He grinned. In any other situation, I might've thought he was flirting with me, but the restaurant was clearly desperate. I peered inside. Only two tables were occupied, each with three or four people. I was the only one in American clothing. That might not be unusual in other places, but I live in a very international region where it's common for people of different races and cultures to mix. Shaking my wave of self-consciousness, I placed a take-out order for beef shawarma with fries. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
One Last WhistleEditor's Note: Cinematic legend Lauren Bacall died on August 12, 2014. This is Quail Bell Magazine's admittedly belated but nonetheless heartfelt tribute to her. When I first was exposed to Lauren Bacall, I was watching a program on TV counting down the best movie quotes of all time. One of the quotes I saw came from a movie called To Have and Have Not. I recognized the scene as something I saw a parody of in The Far Side, but now I understood the context. In the clip, a gorgeous woman in a pinstripe robe is about to leave a room, and tells the man in the room to whistle for her. She pauses in the doorway and says the immortal line: “You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and...blow.” That line and that role was what helped push Lauren Bacall into the public conscious. She gained the role in that film when she was only nineteen after director Howard Hawks' wife saw Bacall on the cover of Harper's Bazaar. Her chemistry with actor Humphrey Bogart was what helped give her a larger role in the film, and the two would marry sometime after production wrapped. The two would remain together until Bogart's death in 1957. Bacall's career spanned decades, including roles in films like The Big Sleep, Key Largo, Murder on the Orient Express, and more. Most of these roles played up Bacall's unique appearance, with her crooked eyebrows, piercing eyes, and low voice. Her voice is part of the name of a voice disorder known as Bogart-Bacall syndrome, in which horseness develops when people speak or sing outside their normal vocal range. Bacall will be remembered for her work on film, television, and stage. She had a unique look and carried herself in a way that will be remembered when one looks back on classic Hollywood cinema. With a career of over seventy years, it will be hard to forget how to whistle. All one has to do is think of the fabulous Lauren Bacall, and it will come back to them. #Real #LaurenBacall #HollywoodStars #CinematicLegends #Movies #GoldenEra #FilmTelevisionStage #TheBigSleep Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Your Grief in Print My sofa is my habitat. If a five-year-old might draw a tiger lurking through a jungle or a shark prowling a coral reef, that same child would draw me sprawled out on my red-orange sofa bed, with my laptop, books, or drawing board. Yes, I have a desk. Yes, I have a work table. But my favorite place to dream and write and binge on Netflix is my sofa. It's the same place where I choose to relax after a long day of work.
On Tuesday, August 5th, I retired to that same predictable spot. I had spent the morning writing articles and press releases for clients and the afternoon teaching a writing workshop to children. That evening, I had another short assignment due. I thought I would eat a quick dinner and clack away until I could finally have some fun. Instead, I received an email that ruined my night. A major tabloid wanted to know if I was available to work. The assignment? Interviewing the widow of the highest-ranked military officer killed in combat since the Vietnam War. This widow was practically my neighbor, living at most a five or ten minute drive from my apartment. The money was more than good; it was great. Yet my answer was no. Grief may be private or it may be communal. Either way, it is a personal emotion, experience, and era that you either choose to share or not. If you choose to share your grief, chances are you will only entrust your closest friends and family. You will not appreciate a stranger knocking on your door, asking you how you feel, and snapping a picture of your devastated expression—all within hours of your husband's tragic ending. You will either choose to go about your normal day with as much poise as you can muster or lock yourself away from the public. Your choice should not be the topic of any publication anywhere, unless you choose to write a personal essay or poem, which, again, is your choice. Otherwise, it is not a topic suitable for public scrutiny. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Control is NOT love.Girl meets boy and boy meets girl. She’s a 21-year-old senior at WSU Vancouver who is getting ready to graduate and is still a virgin. He’s a young, ambitious billionaire who owns his own company in Seattle. They meet in an unexpected fashion, fall in love and live happily ever after. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m referencing the relationship of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey from New York Times Bestellers’ list, Fifty Shades of Grey, written by E.L. James.
Before I get too far into this, let me address that I am not a prude in any way, shape, or form. I am aware of what the bondage/discipline and sadomasochism or sadism and masochism lifestyles entails. I don’t find it offensive and I’ve read erotic romance novels before on my own accord. My qualms with Fifty Shades of Grey do not lie with the BDSM itself. It’s the characters. My irritation lies with them and how their relationship works on a day-to-day basis. Anastasia “Ana” Steele is shy yet intelligent girl. At the beginning of the trilogy, she says that she is a “pale, brown-haired young woman with blue eyes too big for her face.” She also says on multiple occasions that she is slim, pale and scruffy. In short, she’s insecure. I think that some point in our lives, we are all insecure. But the constant degradation of the female protagonist is unnerving. Can we just end the pity party and move on? Christian Grey is a 27-year-old billionaire who owns his own company; there is no board involved. He is fluent in French; he loves to fly helicopters and gliders; he has been playing the piano since he was six years old; and he is accustomed to a lavish lifestyle. Author E.L. James created a man who doesn’t exist; but is fantasized by women—and men—across the globe. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The University That Ate Richmond By Christopher Sloce QuailBellMagazine.com DISCLAIMER: The writer of this piece wants to make very certain that no one takes this essay as a political as a well-oiled, statistics-minded argument against Wal-Mart. I am not an economics major and have no interest in political journalism. All I can speak to is the personal love of tacos and egg-headed diversions into a Michel De Certeau essay I like quite a bit. It’s more of a break-up song with a case. Last week my alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU to the world at large), announced they were putting a Wal-Mart on campus. The Wal-Mart will be a To Go convenience store, 4,000 square feet large compared to the mammoth Wal-Mart Supercenter you may be picture. Small or not, Richmonders and even VCU alumni no longer living in Richmond were incensed, myself included. Death knells rang, obituaries were drafted, and all I could think about was the Little Mexico restaurant that used to sit across from Empire, a bar best known for its music.
If you never had the joy of eating at Little Mexico on Laurel Street, here’s what you missed: There were bars with window seating and a glass lunch counter next to a well-stocked tequila bar I never saw a bartender or a drinker populating. The bar tops were glass, with pictures slid underneath. The lighting was low and the place was clean. But the lunch counter mattered the most because underneath, there were heaps of barbacoa, carnitas, shredded beef, carne asada steak, chicken and potatoes. It’s the tacos that matter here. Little Mexico sold three tacos for $7. That may sound like a rip-off, but that ignores two facts. One is that the tacos had the filling of your choice for all three tacos; it wasn’t an issue to get a carnitas, a beef, and a potato taco, or two of one and one of another. Choice in these matters is often rare. The other thing is, they were the best meal I had eaten up to that point in my life. The pork belly from Husk in Charleston I lucked into would have eventually trumped them, but the tacos were for every day and still win for efficiency. They got me through weekends, when the cafeteria food took a noticeable dip in quality; both a highlight and a consistency. I took the tacos to go sometimes, but usually I ate them inside, in the lowlight ambience, where it felt like another universe entirely—something more fitting more in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye than Richmond. Then someone said they wanted shriveled chicken tenders and mediocre breakfast foods, all in one Formica tiled way-station nightmare. Somebody turned the Little Mexico into a frozen yogurt joint that never opened. And that was the first sign. At least now the food was university sanctioned and consistent, week or weekend. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Never Let the Trolls Win I break the first rule of the Internet: I read the comments.
Why? Because the comments are often the best part of an article. Intelligent, thoughtful commenters provide deeper insight and alternative perspectives on a good article, and are hilarious and validating on a terrible one. Much like Twitter, the comments section can provide up-to-the-minute news on a breaking story and correct errors within the article. In short, the comments are as important to the article as the content of the article itself. This is new for the news. In the past, news and articles were mostly stand alone pieces. Any response was word of mouth, or an editorial published much later. You heard from a limited number of voices. Now we can instantly hear from a variety of people on any given topic, and this is good. This makes the news more accurate and more interesting. I’m fairly picky about the blogs and websites I read regularly. For a long time it was Jezebel and XOJane, back when XOJane was worth reading. Now it’s just Jezebel. Jezebel has changed a lot over the years, but for me it’s always been a source of entertainment, and often my primary news source. I have a bias after all. I’m a woman and a feminist, and if I’m going to get information it may as well come from a source that shares my bias. The same facts will all be present, and I’m going to have the same opinion of Hobby Lobby or whatever else is going on whether I hear about it on Jezebel or Fox News. And of course, I love the comments on Jezebel. They are usually well-written and intelligent. After the Hobby Lobby verdict came down several commenters took the time to explain some of the legalese and the immediate effect of that verdict on women. Just after news of Robin Williams’s death came out a commenter on Jezebel posted an update with a statement from Williams’s wife, sourced and ready to be added to the body of the article. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Seeking help when a loved one has mental illness By Garrett Riggs QuailBellMagazine.com Like so many others, I have been saddened by Robin Williams’ death, and like too many others, I feel a personal connection to his suicide and the deep depression that plagued Williams. Courtney Barron wrote a wonderful essay for Quail Bell describing her reaction to Williams’ suicide and her own struggles with depression. If you haven’t read it, take a little time and do so. She does a good job of showing what it is like to live with that dark feeling that envelopes the sufferer and blocks out the happiness and light around them. I am not writing this from the perspective of someone who suffers from mental illness. Instead, I am writing from the perspective of someone who has lost a loved one to suicide. My older brother killed himself during one of his deepest downs. It has been more than 10 years and I still struggle to understand it, much less write about it. In her essay, Barron talks about the eyes of the truly depressed and the haunted look they have.
“This sickness lives inside many people, even though they smile and laugh at times, it is there lurking behind their eyes. You might even catch a glimpse of it if you know what to look for. Theirs are sad eyes, ones that see ghosts,” Barron writes. For the last few years of his life, my brother had those eyes. If you look at pictures of Robin Williams, you’ll see he had those eyes too. Even when he’s flashing a smile, it doesn’t quite reach those beautiful blue eyes. My brother had blue eyes and auburn hair like Robin Williams. And also like Williams, when he was in his Up phase, he ate up life and loved hard and gave himself to everyone around him. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The War By Courtney Barron QuailBellMagazine.com The darkness inside Robin Williams that took him from us calls me to write and so I must in his honor and for those who suffer from depression. Now I rarely write about celebrities. They are typically such fickle, self-centered, untouchable people. But there are those rare celebrities that reach out beyond their bubble and stick with us, that inspire us, bringing us endless joy. Robin Williams was one of those gems. After I learned of his death, I immediately picked up my remote and went straight to The Birdcage on Netflix. That movie has a magical way of making me feel a million times better, even with one of its stars now deceased. I needed to remember the joy that Robin Williams created.
But we must face what took him. Many are asking right now, how can someone who made so much light in this world have been so full of darkness? Coming from a family with a long history of depression, I understand this darkness all too well. I really wish I didn't understand it at all. It's a language I don't want to speak but its words fall out of my mouth anyway. This sickness lives inside many people, even though they smile and laugh at times, it is there lurking behind their eyes. You might even catch a glimpse of it if you know what to look for. Theirs are sad eyes, ones that see ghosts. The world wants everyone to smile, so we the sad ones try, but our eyes betray us. All any of us really want to do is scream and cry because we can't have the gift of happiness or even contentment. Damn biology. I've spent many days in a fog I can't escape, nasty words being whispered to me by some shadow following me around, uninvited and impossible to escape. It's one of the most exhausting feelings on the planet. My own personal hovering black cloud tied to my wrist with an unbreakable string. Every day is a fight to break free. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Fifty Shades of What the Hell Oh, Fifty Shades of Grey. Where to even start? I got conned into reading this book by a girlfriend of mine who insisted it was a steamy read that I wouldn’t want to put down. WRONG. This book is not only terribly written (which really took me out of the story mindset), it was also really hard to suspend disbelief that these kinds of situations would actually happen to a person, let alone a clumsy virgin at, like, 25 or something. Not that being a virgin is a bad thing. This fact just added to the overall what-the-hell factor of Fifty Shades. Now, this girlfriend lent me the entire trilogy. And I read the first one in a sort of quickness. I can finish the entire Hunger Games trilogy in a day, so I figure I’m a pretty fast reader. However, it took me several days to read the first book, and when I finally picked up the second one [WHICH IS EVEN WORSE], I had to put it down for a week or four in the middle because it was just so terrible. I couldn’t make myself read the third one. It would've been too shitty of an experience. I Wiki’d the plot, and I didn’t miss much, just saved myself some horrible writing and pregnancy sex. Ignoring the obviously abusive and unbalanced relationship hiding in BDSM clothing, the sex isn’t even that hot. I know Anastasia is a virgin so everything is new and interesting, but sex on your period and Ben-Wa balls is not all that exciting. The sex in the second book doesn’t get much better. Moving on to the movie trailer. First things first: These people aren’t even hot! I was expecting some sexy goodness, and these people are plain faced ho-hums! I feel like I am being robbed from fantasy fodder. A boring brunette and a boring brunette, neither of which I recognize. I know several people dropped out because of how bad the script was [SURPRISE!], so they must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Can we talk about the rating? Seriously—R? A book that is literally porn gets an R? What is the point of even going to see it if there’s only going to be clenching butts, awkward movie L-shaped sheets, and no dicks. This girl will hopefully have some nice boobs and the guy will be all muscle-y, I assume, in order to balance the complete lack of sex in a movie that’s all about sex. I promise ya, you did not read this book for the great love story, and you’re not going to the movie for some lovely romance that will have you swooning in the aisles. The hottest thing about this movie trailer is Beyoncé crooning in the background with her slowed down "Crazy in Love" remix. That was what made my blood tingle when watching the trailer. Super-duper hot and a super-duper a song for boning. Ready for the soundtrack to come out just for that one song. All the above being said, I will go see this movie. Not on Valentine’s Day—God, that would be depressing—but some other time with some girlfriends and maybe sneak in a flask to spike my giant soda to make this boring R movie with its boring faced actors a bit more interesting and make the horrid abusive undertones less repugnant. #Real #FiftyShadesOfGrey #50Shades #StupidBooks #StupidMovies #Sex #Porn #NotReallyLove #Unromantic #BadPlots Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Make it happen, shutterbugs and cinéastes! #Real #FilmFestival #FilmCompetition #DocumentaryFilm #ShortFilms #ExperimentalFilms #AnimatedFilms #RVA #Arts Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Disney Finally Steps Up in The Game Of Love If any name carries alongside it the definition of True Love, I doubt anybody would argue the name Disney. They’ve been selling True Love Conquers All since 1937 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and people around the world have eaten it up just like the Wicked Queen’s poisoned apple. And unfortunately, that’s sort of what the concept has become: poisoned.
Disney films are incredibly influential when it comes to forming children’s ideas about how the world works. These films are simplistic and formulaic, but they try to instill ideas about morality. They teach the things that we can’t really explain, including concepts like forgiveness, loyalty, determination, and love. But for decades, they have really only told one type of story. Disney has defined true love as something inherently romantic, and children really do pick up on that. All the way up from Snow White and Cinderella until more recent films like The Princess and the Frog and Tangled, the plotlines of these movies have all relied heavily on this long-standing sexist, classist, heteronormative “true love” narrative. Even films like The Princess and the Frog and Mulan are examples in this field despite their excellent messages to young girls. These heroines are smart, resourceful, and brave. They work hard and dominate their narratives by acting rather than being acted against. But despite physical prowess, mental acuity, and personal agency, they fall into the same romantic traps as their less progressive counterparts. However, Disney seems to be taking a turn. In last year’s hit Frozen, the writers turned this trope on its head by redefining true love. After spending the entire film focused on romantic love, Princess Anna saves herself by acting on her feelings of love for her sister, Queen Elsa. Rather than being saved by her initial love interest, the villainous Prince Hans or the underdog romantic boyfriend Kristoff, Anna saves her own life with an act of true love. And, for the first time in anybody’s memory, the true love in this story has nothing to do with romance. Or even men. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Happy July 4th from The Quail Bell Crew!#Real #July4th #IndependenceDay #Summer2014 #SummerHolidays #VintageImage #VintagePostcard #VintageChildren Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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A Tribute to the Voice of Maya AngelouBy Ghia Vitale QuailBellMagazine.com
#Imaginative #Nostalgic #Tribute #MayaAngelou #Poetry #Gallery #Poet #Writing #Creativity #Books #FemaleWriters Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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To Daddies, Dads, Fathers, Sirs, and Papa Bears!By The Quail Bell Crew QuailBellMagazine.com Dear Fledglings, We hope you've had the chance to honor and thank your father today—and if that chance hasn't come yet, perhaps it will come this evening or later this week (better late than never.) Whether it's a phone call or a huge family BBQ, we're sure your papi will feel appreciated. And for those of you with difficult, absent, or diseased dads, we understand that today must be hard and we wish you all the [digital] love we can muster. Wherever you are geographically and emotionally, happy Father's Day. Feathery Hugs, The Quail Bell Crew #Nostalgic #OurWorld #HappyFathersDay #VintageFamily #VintageFather #RetroDad #SummerHolidays #VintagePhoto Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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From Army to Literary AccolatesBy Virginia Woods QuailBellMagazine.com Tennessee native Charles Wright has not only won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, now he can add U.S. Poet Laureate to his cap. This Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia came to poetry at the age of 23 shortly after joining the Army. Wanna read some Wright? Here is a gallery of his complete bibliography with links to the titles, staring with his most recent books: #Imaginative #CharlesWright #USPoetLaureate #UVAPoetryProfessor #PoetryNews #SouthernPoet #SouthernLiterature Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Sweeping Away StereotypesBy Quail Bell Social Butterfly QuailBellMagazine.com Our new friends at A Clara Trupi de Ovos y Assovio, a Brazilian theatre company that's been around since 2005, wanted to give the Quail Bell(e)s a taste of Portugese-language performing arts. So they sent us some video clips and photos of their latest socially-minded show, Varre Dor de Vadiagem, which has toured theatre festivals across Latin America. This both lyrical and grotesque populist story focuses on a street sweeper full of big dreams just as human as any other person in the city. It's not too late to catch the production yourself—that is, if you can get to El Salvador or Chile later this year. If not, here's a digital taste: Upcoming performances: • Festi-Clown, El Savador • FINDAZ—Festival Internacional de Teatro y Dança, Chile #Imaginative #OtherWorlds #BrazilianTheatre #TheatreFest #LatinAmericanArt #BrazilArts #PerformingArts Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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The story that will forever haunt Marty Cobb's sister“What did I think was wrong? That made it sound as if nothing was really wrong. I only thought it was wrong.” —From The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath I woke up with a start, detecting the scurrying of a rodent in my room. I wanted to believe that the mouse was responsible for my restless sleep. Instead, the culprit lied in what I had read earlier that day. Mid-May was supposed to be a time of celebration. After all, my little sister had just graduated from college and our parents were in town. But my joy for my sister's accomplishment was short-lived because of yet another child rape. I walked downstairs to the kitchen to fetch myself a glass of water. My parents, who were camped out on the sleeper sofa, both murmured. “It's just me,” I said. “Why are you up?” my mother mumbled. “I couldn't sleep,” I explained from my place inside the fridge. I grabbed a box of fried chicken and set it on the counter. “I read something horrible.” “What time is it?” “Four?” I slammed a plate full of chicken into the old microwave and then muttered, “That'll be too loud.” I removed the plate and went to the dining room to gnaw on cold, soggy skin. When I finished my strange supper, I threw the bones away, washed my hands, and headed back to my room. But I couldn't make it past my parents. I could tell that my mother was awake, so I told her the story responsible for my nightmares: Eight-year-old Marty Cobb and his 12-year-old sister were playing on the railroad tracks behind their Richmond, Virginia home when their new 16-year-old neighbor raped Marty's sister. Maurice Washington bludgeoned a 3-year-old with a hammer at age 12 in 2010. When Marty tried protecting his sister, Maurice threw a rock at the boy's head. The tiny boy—reportedly so small for his age that he was often confused for a 5-year-old—died almost instantly. Maurice then scooped up Marty's sister, ran over to her mother's home, and told the girl's mother that she had been raped by a white man. Maurice had bullied the girl into going along with the lie. The girl was taken to the hospital and was not allowed to see her family, even to attend her brother's funeral, because her mother had broken too many of social services' rules and orders. No media outlet released the girl's name because she was a minor, but for anyone in the neighborhood—and just about anyone curious enough period—her name is fairly easy to find out. After all, her brother's name, her mother's name, and her (now former) address have all been made public information. For the rest of this girl's life, she will run into people who will recall the news story. And, with that, she will encounter people judge her. There will be people who blame her, reasoning that she must have provoked the boy. She must have been oversexed and “unladylike.” It will always be “her fault.” We can only hope that more people treat her with empathy and compassion instead of misguided hatred. That is we must practice and demand for all rape victims, whether their stories made the news or not. #OtherWorldlyMadness #HorribleImagination #RVA #DisturbingNews #ChildRape #ChildrenRapingChildren #FamilyTime Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Got venison?By M. Alouette QuailBellMagazine.com You might visit Washington, D.C. for a glimpse of the White House, the monuments, bona fide politicos, or...white-tailed deer? Perhaps not for long. Bambis are so prevalent in Rock Creek Park* that the National Park Service has estimated that about 70 deer inhabit every square mile of the park, about four times what experts say the ecosystem can healthily support. The New York Times dubbed it “a surplus Washington could do without.” In 2012, Rock Creek came up with a plan to manage the deer population—or as the plan states it, reduce “the park's deer population through lethal and non-lethal means” over the course of the next 15 years. Despite protests from the Washington Humane Society and the national animal rights group, In Defense of Animals, the park acted on that plan with sharpshooters. Department of Agriculture shooters had killed 106 white-tailed deer in the 2,000-plus acre park by the end of the 2014 short killing season on March 31. Those 106 deer translated into 3,300 pounds of venison that then went to D.C. Central Kitchen in May. D.C. Central Kitchen prepares 5,000 meals a day for capital city community centers and shelters. Managers report that some clients felt uncomfortable eating the venison when they learned it came from Rock Creek. Last August, In Defense of Animals and the Washington Humane Society sent a petition containing more than 11,000 signatures to the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior. They demanded that the killing be stopped and that the deer be given birth control instead. U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins ruled out the lawsuit filed by five D.C. residents to halt the hunting. White-tailed deer are so common in the D.C. metro area that suburbs like Fairfax County in Virginia regularly schedule managed hunts. Hunt participants are selected via lottery and must qualify with the Fairfax County Police Department. Each hunter is allowed three shots per weapon: shotgun with buckshot, shotgun with slugs, or muzzleloaders. Fairfax County estimates that an average of 4,000 to 5,000 deer-vehicle collisions occur in the county each year—and that's just in Fairfax. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries issued its revised deer management plan as early as 2006; the plan is slated to run through 2015. The National Park Service hopes to achieve target density in Rock Creek by Spring 2015. Curious about what animal activists are saying about the future of deer in Rock Creek Park? Follow the Save the Rock Creek Park Deer page on Facebook. #NotImaginary #ThisWorld #SocialJustice #RockCreekParkDeer #WashingtonDC #FairfaxCounty #DeerHunting #Virginia Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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