Link Roundup Strikes Back (August 15th, 2009)
- Gender gap in pay explained by choice of major
- Roll call: Women in Python. If you’re a woman who uses Python, go let Pam know!
- Notes from the DrupalChix panel at DrupalCampLA last weekend
- A big warning flag on “District 9″ for some major RaceFail and ancillary GenderFail (see comments). Previously: a promotional competition for the movie was open to men only.
- Johanna at Comics Worth Reading Reviews Marvel Divas #2: “This is actually pretty good.” (Background on the wiki.)
- Sarah Mei on Teaching Ruby to high school girls
- Simone Peterson Hruda: Reflections on Black Women in Engineering via the Women in Science blog.
- Belatedly, also at the Women in Science blog: Women of the Apollo Program
Rats about District 9. I was hoping it would be good :/
I know, me too :-/
I saw District 9 on Friday and I think the review’s totally off-base. It’s a negative portrayal of humanity as a whole, and the roles played by white actors were equally (if not more) odious. It’s not The Color Of Fear, but it’s also not a trite white-guy-to-the-rescue film like Power Of One. I’d still recommend seeing it.
I will agree (not with the reviewer, but with the commenters) that a female lead or role or—hell, even a bystander with personality would have been nice. There wasn’t much to prevent it, structurally speaking, so I think it boils down to laziness, ignorance, or timidity.
Coda, I think people of color are in a better position to point out racism than us white folks are. I’m going to assume Cleo knows what she’s talking about on this one, just as I would expect people to listen to me, as a member of the group affected, if I were to review a film and say it was pretty seriously sexist.
Skud, that’s my default policy too, but in this particular case I remain unconvinced. I’ll leave it at that.
Do we drop stuff in comments for future link round-ups? (Is there a delicious account for this?!) Here’s an unfunnybusiness post on some Penny Arcade genderfail: http://www.journalfen.net/community/unfunnybusiness/147783.html
Yup, comments here are just fine! No, there’s no delicious account, we just do them as a running draft here in the blog. But we did link to the Penny Arcade stuff in our first link roundup the other day.