Reheated (107)
From the archives – and from the golden age of the Guardian – some examples of improbable agonising.
Women, we’re told, are being mentally injured by small baked goods.
A commenter asks, “What is it with people’s inability to ignore the things they don’t like?” Meaning things you don’t like and which have no bearing whatsoever on your everyday life or the turning of the world. Say, “our” alleged “obsession” with cupcakes and their supposedly debilitating effects on helpless, hapless womenfolk. Women being so mentally insubstantial that even a tiny cake can unhinge their minds, apparently.
But fretting ostentatiously about things of no importance has long been a standard template for Guardian articles, especially if you can shoehorn in some sophomoric theorising. It’s something most papers do to some extent, due to the obligation to Fill Space Somehow, but the Guardian is by far the greatest exponent and the most grandiose. Many of its contributors have mastered inadvertent surrealism.
As commenter sk60 quipped in reply,
On being oppressed by suburban barbecues, where, it turns out, the Patriarchy reigns and women are crushed underfoot.
I’ve been to a few barbecues over the years, one or two with female grill-keepers, though most with males wielding the Plastic Spatula of Oppression™. I can’t say I was ever aware of much argument as to roles. It generally seems to depend on who’s in the mood or who’s the better cook, at least of the items in question, or – perhaps more commonly – who’s prepared to spend the day on duty, sweating, while smelling of grease and smoke.
I’ve yet to hear of womenfolk being locked indoors, away from the charcoal and firelighters, by surly, hissing men. And at the barbecue I attended recently, the matriarch of the house had a much more important job than merely cooking sausages. My sister-in-law kept the day lubricated with endless, quite colossal, pitchers of Pimms. Priorities, you see.
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Mr Power that quite a few people, male and female, actually enjoy the role-play opportunity of the barbecue – the theatre, the ritual, the fun. Even – heresy! – gendered fun. But hey, the point is that some of you heathens are still arranging your leisure time and social gatherings in a way of which our Guardianista disapproves. Your barbecues aren’t being gender balanced in the way he would like.
Also, the assertion by our learned journalist:
Guardian writer is psychologically crushed by spellcheck software, disposable paper cups.
“Angela could get coffee at Starbucks with ease,” says Ms Rojas, “while Icess was still spelling her name out.” Oh, this new realm of suffering: “Jessica was a staple at my local Chinese place even though Icess paid. And even Microsoft Word recognised Jenny as a proper pronoun, a proper person, over me; the red squiggle line was a constant reminder.”
Spellcheck too? Will this oppression never end? And doubtless Ms Rojas is intimately familiar with the spelling and pronunciation of every name of every employee at her local Chinese restaurant.
Prompted by Ted S in the comments. Which you’re reading, of course.
For those craving more, this is a pretty good place to start.
That.
I think it’s worth noting just how often the preoccupations of Guardian contributors, or their professed preoccupations, seem a little odd. One might say contrived.
But you’re not supposed to think about that. Too practical.
Well, indeed. For people who like to tell us, quite often, how immensely empathetic they are, they – Guardian writers – don’t on the whole seem very good at it.
I mean, if I picture Beloved Sister-In-Law #1 holding court at one of her rather impressive family barbecues, the word downtrodden does not spring to mind.
It’s the weird failure to grasp that the traditional role-play of the barbecue, the genial theatre, is part of the appeal, the ritual, and a source of knowing jokes. (“Man make fire! Man cook meat!” etc.)
And then there’s the implication that a big family feeding would be made more satisfying, more fun, if it were strictly gender-balanced in compliance with the assumptions of a rather sour Guardian contributor. As if the obvious thing missing were a gendered cooking rota.
As so often, you say these things out loud…
I love it when Guardianistas talk about “our obsession” with something that no-one I know is obsessed with.
What was once the language of tabloids has made its way into the more lofty media such as the New York Times. “What You Should Know About . . .” or “Five Points You Must Know About . . .” I especially like when a headline startes with “The Question No One is Asking . . .” Perhaps, dear journalist, no one is asking because no one cares.
I confess, when reading the NYT Sunday morning, my eye caught the headline “What to Expect at the Tony Awards” and I muttered to myself, “Gay men. Lots of gay men,” and I moved on.
[ Slides ashtray of oddly dusty boiled sweets closer to Stephanie. ]
I took the wrappers off to save you time.
Not infrequently, it’s as if the writers were baffled and disgusted by the most normal and innocuous human interactions. As if the need to find humdrum things problematic, thereby signalling in-group elevation, overrode all else, even if the attempt involves great contrivance and makes one look ridiculous.
And it seems fair to assume that Mr Power would be much less forthcoming on the subject of gender roles among other, browner people. I suspect that only Whitey’s leisure habits are to be the target of his eye-rolling disdain. One might, I think, regard his use of the word suburban as having certain intended connotations.