{"id":18686,"date":"2022-09-21T00:12:51","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T00:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=18686"},"modified":"2022-09-20T20:15:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T20:15:11","slug":"woman-a-reel-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/21\/woman-a-reel-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman, A Reel Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

T<\/span>here needs to be a show \u2026 one that reveals a certain type of creativity that is distinctly American\u2014sometimes irreverent, usually smart, always more deliberate than subtle, and without question self-centered, in the good way. When I peruse the many streamed offerings these days, I don\u2019t sense a dearth of at least compelling and in some cases excellent content. There\u2019s lots of good stuff out there, from two-plus-hour Oscar-nominated movies to seasons 1 through 6 of Emmy-winning shows. <\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the problem. I don\u2019t ever have that much time.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I find myself scrolling my phone a lot\u2014as in, way too much a lot. The kind of too much I call a \u2018rabbit hole,\u2019 a place where internal time stops and external time gets away. Yet, it\u2019s for good reason. Since the advent of TikTok\u2014a medium known for brevity and video\u2014the major social media players like Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and YouTube (Google) have followed suit by pushing short video content to its user base, too. For whatever reason Facebook \u2018Reels\u2019 work best for me, in terms of convenience and algorithm-correctness\u2014that formulaic, artificial intelligence accuracy of knowing which content I\u2019ll like and which content I\u2019ll hate just enough to keep watching until the ad, which tries so hard to not look like an ad, comes across my screen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dominating the hate-end of my algorithm spectrum these days is a social media, social conservative influencer named Matt Walsh. I\u2019m sure he has other pet projects he wants you to think will save the world, but right now he\u2019s hawking his \u2018documentary\u2019 called What Is a Woman? <\/i>If Hollywood turned transphobic overnight, it would still not win an Oscar. This is not a review of the film, since I didn\u2019t\u2014and won\u2019t\u2014see it. I watched the trailer and dozens of his Reels and can firmly guarantee a thumb\u2019s down from me.<\/p>\n

What is a real woman, anyway? <\/b><\/p>\n

As world culture\u2014parts of it, at least\u2014transitions toward a societal respe\u2026 a societal understa\u2026 a societal toleran\u2026 a societal \u2018realization\u2019 that sex and gender are two different words (because they in fact mean two different things), Walsh and other sociopolitical influencers like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson have jumped on this perspective shift, too. Apparently, mainstream media is not the only media that likes to do things for the ratings. <\/span><\/p>\n

Before I bash Walsh, a word about why the other two don\u2019t deserve trashing. They deserve to be heard, and you deserve to be prepared. <\/span><\/p>\n

Shapiro is a popular podcast host and editor of The Daily Wire.<\/i> He speaks rapid-fire and fact-based, he\u2019s a true intellectual with a pro-religious\u2014Judao-Christian to be precise\u2014bias. He\u2019s transparent about his faith, so I take no issue with him using it in his argumentation. My problem with Shapiro is when his verbal speed gets used in, let\u2019s say, a five-step line of argumentation arriving at a conclusion. Too often though, all the way back at step two or three, Shapiro commits factual error or factual cherry-picking. Worse, his arguments sometimes include assumptions that if wrong make his argument fall apart (by the way, this is what \u2018begging the question\u2019 actually means).<\/span><\/p>\n

Shapiro takes the approach that gender fluidity is psychological disorder at worst and an emotional immaturity at best. He\u2019ll ask, let\u2019s say, white 30-year-old females if they can identify as 60 and Black. And that\u2019s when the next Reel hits your screen. He\u2019s not much kinder than Walsh, but at least he\u2019s trying. If you want to get under his skin, tell him\/them your pronouns aren\u2019t what he\/they thinks they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019d bug Peterson, too, who\u2019s country (Canada) passed legislation protecting gender expression even when it comes to pronoun usage. Peterson is a clinical psychologist, author, and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto who has become a popular podcaster and public speaker currently on a world tour. A true academic, all political correctness zeitgeists have passed his personality by. That\u2019s not to say he isn\u2019t well-mannered. All Canadians are well-mannered, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

Peterson, the ever-curious psychologist, dissects issues like gender identity scientifically and philosophically. He asks questions, he provides data, and he constructs his version of an ethical solution, some of which\u2014ironically for a modern conservative\u2014err on the side of protecting society at the expense of the individual. Recently, Peterson noted how there are naturally effeminate men and naturally masculine women\u2014all of whom have the right to feel safe and free. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut what are we going to do, start carving them up?\u201d Peterson, referring to sex-change operations, remarked in his trademark shrill.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Walsh:<\/span><\/p>\n

A practicing Catholic, who has demonstrated very little Christ-like behavior in his career. His documentary is riddled with corroborated claims of journalistic fraud, which explains clip after clip of a smug Walsh\u2014that\u2019s his default behavioral identity\u2014befuddling and\/or shaming trans people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Father of six children. Walsh may stop practicing Catholicism in the bedroom when he learns that 1.4% of youth ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. identify as transgender.<\/span><\/p>\n

Proudly not college-educated, which is admirable when someone develops skill and\/or expertise regardless, Walsh\u2019s skill is to be a provocateur, not much else. He says gender is based on sex, but when someone asks him about hermaphrodites, he says it\u2019s irrelevant because hermaphrodites are still only capable of producing one type of gamete (sperm or ova). Using Walsh\u2019s logic then, you aren\u2019t a real male or female until you\u2019re fertile.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But at least he\u2019s consistent. He plays dumb and unphased externally. And he\u2019s pretty stupid and insensitive on the inside, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note:<\/i><\/b> According to a study by the UCLA Williams Institute, there are 7,000 Idaho adults and 1,000 Idaho youth who are transgender. When you come across them, remember that pronouns are typically used to talk about someone, not to someone. So you won\u2019t need to learn or use each others\u2019 pronouns, if you engage one another directly, and with kindness, too.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine There needs to be a show \u2026 one that reveals a certain type of creativity that is distinctly American\u2014sometimes irreverent, usually smart, always more deliberate than subtle, and without question self-centered, in the good way. When I peruse the many streamed offerings these days, I don\u2019t sense a dearth of at least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18691,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686\/revisions\/18691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}