The paper didn’t think this was publishable. I don’t often write satire, so I either laid it on too thick or not thick enough. I thought it was good, anyway.
Women are just so reckless — college gals like Geisy Arruda should learn to cover up, knowing that her male counterparts transform from mild-mannered men into beastly rapists-in-waiting when they get a sniff of a curvy blonde.
On Oct. 22, classmates of the 20-year-old tourism student at Sao Paulo’s Bandeirante University harassed, jeered and threatened her with rape when she showed up for class in a hot pink mini-dress.
According to Brazzil Magazine, about 20 female students followed her to the bathroom and attempted to force pants on her. Men trailed, trying to stick cellphone cameras up her skirt. Police officers finally showed up to subdue the ever-growing mob with pepper spray and extract a crying Arruda from a barricaded classroom, while the approximately 700-strong crowd shouted, “Puta! Puta! (Whore! Whore!)”
Then, the poor gal was informed she’d been expelled after the school took out a newspaper ad saying so. (She was reinstated Monday after a media and government uproar.) In contrast, several hecklers were suspended.
In case today’s lesson wasn’t clear, here it is from the university’s lawyer: “She always liked to provoke boys. The problem was not with her clothes, but the way she acts, talks, crosses her legs, and walks.”
I’ve heard that line directed at rape victims: What were you wearing? Why were you walking home alone? How much did you drink? Here’s a question: Does excessive thigh fill men with so much puritanical hysteria that mass rape seems like a reasonable response?
Brazil, like North America, is a hyper-sexualized culture. Though the media makes mention that Brazilian students dress modestly in jeans and tees, Brazil is still the land of Carnaval and G-strings, and skimpy dress is encouraged — that is, apparently, until someone actually does so; then she’s a “puta.”
Women can only take so much objectification before they become just things to ridicule, or — as was the case with a 15-year-old girl in Richmond, Calif., last month — just bodies to gang-rape in a school yard.
Arruda’s harrowing experience is a lesson: Men are not responsible for their actions, therefore women are.
So maybe it’s true what everyone says about university — the most worthwhile lessons are extra-curricular. No textbooks required; just a hot pink mini-dress.
The Dragon Lady
Ah, Wikipedia. It always seems to be the night I’m scrambling to finish some other writing that I come across a subject that grips me, sending me down a rabbit hole of Googling and complete focus derailment.
Which is how I came to learn about Anna May Wong, a second-generation Chinese-American actress with Taishan roots. She started in silents but transitioned into talkies, but was forgotten for many a year as many a Hollywood star ends up. She was friends with Marlene Dietrich, her co-star in Shanghai Express (still below), and Leni Riefenstahl (isn’t that some terrible irony?) and for a while seemed to be headed for superstardom.
But Wong’s career hit an intersection of bad politics and yellow peril. It forced her into insulting stereotypical roles as evil dragon ladies, temptresses, or China dolls, which Wong was critical of. California’s anti-miscegenation laws (repealed in 1948) prevented fraternization, on or offscreen, between Asians and whites. It prevented her from landing lead roles, where she would have had to star opposite white men. In a famous case of yellowface, she was passed over for the heroine role in Pearl Buck’s “The Good Earth,” which is about Chinese peasants, in favour of Luise Rainer.
Oh, and then because she chose the dishonourable career of acting, the Chinese people hated her for being a lascivious embarrassment to her people. Even so, she left for China, hoping to to discover a troupe of fellow Chinese actors that would enable them all to create their own opportunities. She also sent diary newsreels back to Hollywood, allowing theatergoers to explore China in a non-racist way. (I joke a lot about how Taishan people speak in the “hick” Chinese dialect, but in all seriousness, Wong sounds like a very smart, resourceful woman.)
The anti-miscegenation laws probably had some part in her never marrying, too. The above clip of jazz staple “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You),” here performed by Ella Fitzgerald in 1957, was co-written by Eric Maschwitz, a Brit with whom Wong had a lasting but obviously impossible romantic connection. A true torch song.
I always get obsessed with these injustices done toward women (and the Chinese, for obvious reasons… Rape of Nanjing, anyone?) — but this one runs a little deeper, since Wong seemed to be boxed in despite her best efforts. This one gets my feminist gas face.