Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Roman Holiday (1953)

#inspirationalmovie

Let's celebrate the spring with something light yet inspirational. Traditional yet empowering. Here you have the emancipated Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (1953, William Wyler)! 

While you could reduce the story to a romantic comedy of a girl raised among restrictions falling in love for Gregory Peck, we prefer to go farther and suggest you watch this as a story of a girl that:

- Has a social standing and responsibilities that do not depend upon a man. Although monarchical, that still counts as rather emancipatory feature.
- Decides to break free and have fun!
- Realizes she needs guidance and therefore asks (and purchases) assistance.
- Falls in love and enjoys it.
- (A spoiler, but you should know it by now!) Decides her before-mentioned responsibilities are more important than a love affair, and therefore chooses to resume doing them (and let go of Gregory Peck).

A synopsis: she chooses to have few days off from all the stress and stiffness, has great fun and a romantic adventure, then takes a decision to go back to her professional life (being a princess is a professional duty, albeit a very particular one) and acts upon that.
Here you go, Roman Holiday is an emancipatory piece of movie-making! You are welcome. 

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Tomboy (2011)

#inspirationalmovies

It may be very difficult for older people to admit, but the life of young - and very young - can be extremely complex. Classical literature is full of examples, but today's one is a recent French cinema gem.

Tomboy (2011, Céline Sciamma) offers a moving story about trying to fit in better in your own body while living in an extremely gendered world.

It will (well, it could, if you'll let it) get you thinking about:
- How little external appearance tells you about people. And how - at the same time - you should respect the signals people are sending. Even if that takes you into an uncharted territory (even beyond gender binary, uh oh).
- How much inner drama and struggle is brought up when you realize that you should make serious adjustments in order to fit in. Especially if you feel that you cannot share that with anybody. Especially if people assume that you are too young to have any coherent idea about what's going on.
- How beyond the "oh, children are so cruel" stands nothing more than the boxed thinking of the adults transmitting certain notions. You cannot expect little children - those people still just ordering basic ideas about human life - to question and bend the old toxic ideas right away. Adults should lead by example.

It's bittersweet, short, and very touching. What else do you need?

Thinking bit: Strip the (beauty) pressure

Our very good friend Smaranda (the one most responsible for the Inspirations e-book ) suggested that we share this here, and we salute the tip-off!

So, what this experienced and professional lady named Tracey Spicer is suggesting is... yes, taking it off! And not in pole-dancing-will-empower-you way, no. Instead it's about acknowledging how much time women (and men to some extent, yes, but that's a lesser order of magnitude) spend preparing their exteriors before they go and do things. And how many more things you can do if you decide to dedicate your time to things that actually bring pleasure, knowledge, fun, whatever...

The empowerment recipe here: rethink your time spent on grooming, ask why you do what you do and is it worth it, and then reclaim a bit of your utterly human freedom by shedding the unnecessary.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: V for Vendetta (2005)

#InspirationalMovies

Yes, yes, it has been too long since we have suggested a piece of very powerful fiction. V for Vendetta (2005, James McTeigue) comes directly from an eponymous dystopian graphic novel and follows the logic of inspiration-and-empowerment-through-frustration-and suffering.
Hear us, we do not suggest it as a baseline approach to your private life (there's too much suffering already, thank you), but there is no doubt that Evey Hammond is a role model on how to follow what you think is right and how to look for what may bee hidden from the eyes. And how you lose fear by actually doing things.  

Also, in order to continue with your work that may be challenging and solitary at times, it may be a good idea to give some though to legitimate civil disobedience and personal responsibilities we all have towards the place we inhabit, our home, our family, our communities. And the capacities - for somewhat limited that they tend to be - to improve some of that are what you have to be putting in action. Little actions matter. So take this as a manifesto to have a personal revolution first and then ask it from others. And to hold your representatives accountable. Yes, there is no conflict in that, it's complementary.

Let the bodies be!

Yes, somehow we have ended up speaking about the Dove campaigns again...

Stumbled across a post in BBC News called Five photos that sparked body image debates. Fair enough. The message? The usual one. Do what you want people will never like actual bodies. The bodies not being allowed to be what they actually are - vehicles. Very diverse vehicles if you look for differences. And very similar vehicles if you compare them to anything else. Facts of life.

They have to be about something else. Like, sexualization of the pregnant. Or being too fat, too thin, too short, too hairy... blah, blah, blah.

Mind that the only male among the 5 cases reviewed is a person with disability that took the Body for Life challenge and ended up with a body many people did not believed to be real.

All the women featured have suffered media-storms of not being perfect enough (as they say, "only decades earlier maternity dresses tended to sport large bows at the neck to direct attention away from the baby bump - and the mother's femininity"; no the naked pregnant famous lady photos were not normal before 1991).

It's about being too real. Too exposed. Too vulnerable.

And, yes, the story is about media and fashion industry as those are cases of outrages about people with public female bodies. As Demi Moore. As Lizzie Miller. As Isabelle Caro. And not yet touching the question how that spirit of body-watch, that constant scrutiny affects all of us.

While it's perfectly fine to take pictures while you are pregnant. While we are happy about every model that have some body fat (although it's unclear why they are specially marked as +models). And while anorexia might certainly be a dangerous and very painful thing to deal with.

...it is not OK to police bodies.

Sonya Renee Taylor: The Body is Not An Apology

Sonya Renee Taylor @ Seattle Poetry Slam Feb 2011

launching the revolutionary idea that the body is not an apology, that radical self love and body empowerment is as needed as it is a radical notion

"In this picture I am 230lbs.  In this picture, i have stretch marks and an unfortunate decision in the shape of a melting Hershey's kiss on my left thigh.  I am smiling, like a woman who knows your watching and likes it.  For this one camera flash, I am unashamed, unapologetic."

You can find the story and the movement here
+ check out the tumblr