Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Friday, May 15, 2009

I am not my hair - pseudo-review

As I was running around the Internet and youtube, I stumbled upon a song for a certain India.Arie, the song is "I am not my hair" I had never heard of either the song or the singer.


The message is clear, she is not her hair, she is the person behind the appearances.
In theory we all agree that we are not our hair, we are not our appearances we are the humans within. A human being is a human being regardless of the color of the sink, the fair, the shape of the head, the waste and anything else related to appearances.
But what is interesting about this song (and the message behind it) is not the simple statement, it should be common knowledge. I agree that it's sadly not true when it comes to the actual life, but in theory everyone agrees we should be seen according to who we are not to the way we look.
But anyway, put that aside, what is interesting about this song, is the way the message is formulated. The singer is not arguing with the gossipy-gossip girls gossiping about the way she looks and the way her hair is done... No she is saying who she is!
So thumbs-up for Arie, you are not your hair, you are the person behind those appearances and judging from this first encounter, it's an awesome person behind.
Interesting fact #2: in the third paragraph, India mentions women struggling with cancer. And not surprisingly, this song became a symbol for women's struggle against cancer. With this paragraph Adrie certainly hits the right cord. A woman is so used to putting so much importance into appearances that when she loses a fundamental component to that beauty (such as a woman's crown aka her hair) she loses a lot, though she is fighting for her life she finds herself attacked with either disgust or pity, because she "lost her hair" when did hair become more important than life?

If you google the song you might find dedication made by women to women fighting cancer and those who have lost their hair if not their lives in this battle. India wrote this passage as a dedication to Melissa Etheridge (Female rock star, Lesbian activist, Environmentalist, survivor of cancer in 2007, mother of 4, blond... you pick the identity you want to label her with) inspired by the latter's triumphant performance during the Grammy awards where she appeared bald and alive.
Her performance brought tears to my eyes," Arie says. "At that moment in time, her performance was a juxtaposition of pain and beauty. It symbolized the beauty of strength

Interesting fact #3: check out the lyrics of "I am not my hair"... there's an adsense bar at the bottom of the page, I would bet you anything that it is an ad for cosmetics, non? You see, even if the singer is literally attacking shallowness and attachment to appearances, a robot like google ads would assume that the people reading this article would also be interesting in reading about products that help them cheat to improve the appearances.

Just thought like sharing :)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Feminist Collective Song Contest

The Feminist Collective is organizing a song contest. The purpose of it is to come up with a Feminist Anthem while promoting and encouraging the art of songwriting and composing. Our primary focus is to have a great song, written by one of you great people, to become the voice of our collective.


I-Applicants:

The contest is open to all Womyn and feminists in / from Lebanon.
Only one entry is allowed per person for the contest, and any multiple entries will be deleted. Your initial entry will still be valid.
Participants can submit a song to be performed as the Feminist Collective Anthem.
Participants can submit their songs on C.D. to the Collective’s headquarters or by email : Info@feministcollective.com

The information sheet at the bottom of this document should be attached to your track.

II-The Contest:

Upon completion and submission of the C.D. or by mailing in an entry, eligible contstants will be entered into the Contest for a chance to win our Prize.
The Application Deadline is July 16, 2009
The winners will be declared end of July 2009


III-The Jury:

Once all tracks received, they will be compiled and all members have the eligibility to vote for their favorite song to determine the winner.


IV- The Prize:
There will 500$ awarded as a prize to the winner.


To attach to your track :

Applicant’s name/nickname :
E-mail:
Phone Number:
Track/ Song Title:
Duration :
Genre:
A few words about you:

Thursday, March 12, 2009

بمبة سيليكون - Review



On my way to see the play “بمبة سيليكون” in LAU I was telling my friend Amie why in Lebanon we have sense humor that u don’t find in any other country in the Arab world (according to her). We are funny, yes we make fun of everything, we laugh and joke about our wars, our politicians, our pain.

We have it our blood we are funny people that make fun of everything without realizing the amount of pain behind it, we make fun of politicians and people laugh and people from out side this country do they realize how much pain and hard living these politicians are causing us.

بمبة سيليكون a play that’s being shown for free on the occasion of International Womyn’s Day directed by a feminist as I heard, so I was very interested to see what it is, I walked into the theater a woman sleeping on the floor in a living room that sounded very much from our reality.

The stage was divided in two spaces, the first was where the caller’s bedroom and it occupied most of the stage and the second was the office of the operator which was above the rest of the stage and restricted to the left side only. In the background Majida El Roumi music and the sound of the TV indicating that the story took place during the 2006 war.

The play starts with a woman screaming and calling the doctor’s clinic, at that moment u would think that she was having a baby. After calling the clinic 4 times the secretary walks in and answers the phone and then the woman stands from behind the coach and you would notice D33 size boobs.

My silicon exploded because of the pressure of war planes and bombing, said the panicking woman.
Well the doctor ran away with his family and I can’t really do anything for you, answers the secretary in the office.

These two sentences started the dialogue which was the backbone of the whole play.

And then after something exploding in Beirut they both freak out and start screaming one of them is scared for her life while the other is scared of the silicon is in her blood which she fears might kill her. The secretary makes it clear that it won’t happen.
Both characters go through a lot of emotional stages, at some point they are crying and then they would be gossiping about their lives and they would forget the war outside.
That explains exactly the reality of a lot of women in our society and shallowness of their lives.

It was a funny play and I couldn’t help myself from laughing although I see it as a sad play.

The audience laughed all through the play especially when the actresses were making a fool out themselves; talking about bra sizes, marriage and sex-positions that will make you pregnant.

It was not funny at all and I know for a fact that the woman who wrote the play wanted people to see the sad reality behind this humor, but the question is how many people really saw that and understood it.

We make fun of things, we laugh at our own misery and people laugh with us, without paying attention to the suffering behind every joke. And that is our main problem while working on any issue in this country. We are too busy laughing that will always create boundaries that will prevent us from addressing our issues and changing mentalities.

Zainab Nasser

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

IWD - a round-up of resources

Today is Wednesday the 11th of March 2009. Three days after the memorable IWD 2009. The community is still very buzzed about it. Everytime two FC members meet they still talk about either the event itself or the reactions to it.

The staff and participants did a great job putting up resources (pictures, videos and articles). If you want to check pictures please check:


In the last two days our resident filmmaker Chantal edited a lot of short movies that she uploaded to the YouTube Channel that she created also. For now, we have four interesting videos:


Now as for Press Coverage, the FC has been mentioned, so far, in: