wrath of prawn
June 2013
Petition to start using “patronus” instead of “spirit animal” because not being appropriative is pretty rad.
Okay let’s go through this one more time. Deep breath.
If you think the concept of “spirit animals” comes from Native American religious practices, you are wrong. Also, you’re probably basing your ideas about Native American spiritualism on movies that are incredibly, extremely, offensively wrong. (Spoiler alert: You cannot actually paint with all the colors of the wind.) You’re also failing to understand that Native American and First Nations people are not a homogeneous group, that they do not now and have never existed as a single people with a single set of beliefs. In short, what I’m saying is that just this once, calling this appropriation is actually the thing that is offensive.
If you think the concept of “spirit animals” is specific to any one cultural or religious practice, you are wrong. This idea of animal guides and related ones — like shape-shifting, people possessed by the spirits of animals, particular interpretations of animal dreams, a certain attitude toward the hunting of animals, etc etc — have roots in all sorts of ancient religions, including eastern Shamanic religions, Celtic religions, really religions of of every description… I could go on. Essentially it’s animism, which is common to the whole of human experience, because there isn’t a culture on this planet that doesn’t have a complex, deep-rooted relationship of some kind with animals. But “spirit animals” as most of us understand the concept? Is a made-up thing. Just like Harry Potter’s patronus. Just like His Dark Materials’ daemons. Just like basically any other “inoffensive” alternative on offer.
Essentially, “spirit animal” is a trope. I happen to fucking love that trope. I think it’s fun and interesting. It’s not a real concept, except possibly for Wiccans and New Agers, both of whom appropriated the concept from — guess what! — their completely wrong ideas about Native spiritual practices. I’m willing to bet that everything you’ve ever learned about Native religions came from a white person. I’m willing to bet that it’s wrong.
For all these people who want to be sensitive to Native culture, you can do a lot better than defending their honor from a concept that isn’t theirs in the first place. (You can start by acknowledging that it’s New Age, not Native. AT ALL.) There are so many ways you can learn about Native culture and the problems that tribes face directly from the people themselves. You could start small. Read some Sherman Alexie. Watch Reel Injun or Incident at Oglala on Netflix. Read up on why exactly casting Johnny Depp as Tonto is fucking horrible. Try actually learning something about what they’re going through (basically a never-ending shitstorm of oppression and erasure) and you can help just by being more informed. Become a social justice crusader for actual social justice issues. Still not sure about the spirit animal thing? These Natives would be happy to tell you all about it. And these ones. And this one. (tl;dr: They’re sick of your bullshit.)
風とオトコのコ
弘田三枝子 (Mieko Hirota)
Mieko Hirota, “Kaze To Otoko No Ko”
This is from a Big Beat compilation called Nippon Girls: Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966-70, chronicling the development of Group Sounds, Japan’s answer to the Rock & Roll of the West.
This particular track—it’s called “風とオトコのコ”—is from Mieko Hirota, AKA Miko-chan. She grew up in Tokyo listening to American Jazz broadcast from the radio station on the local Army base. She wanted to sing. When she was expelled from the Yoyogi Music School for having “too harsh a voice,” she gave not one fuck and became a Pop singer, selling a fuck-ton of records before she got signed by Columbia and was finally able to return to her childhood passion: Jazz. She was, in fact, the first Japanese artist to play the Newport Jazz Festival, in 1965. She must have made one hell of an impression, because apparently Ella Fitzgerald wanted to adopt her.
Does The Dog Die? →
doesthedogdie.com
I have Dog Death anxiety. It extends to other animals too, and to human beings, but it’s especially bad in situations where dogs could quite easily die. Mainly because Hollywood fucking kills the dog all the goddamn time.
It’s not even the fact of the dog dying. I eat beef and pork and would eat dog were it served to me in a bun with a delicious sauce. I’m not a particularly compassionate person.
It’s everything around the dog dying. It’s like how I have a hard time dealing with the deaths of children in stories not because they’re kids but because that irrevocably alters the life of the parents and watching that happen is just so exhausting. I have every sympathy with that loss but I don’t want to watch the endless, exhausting process of our hero learning whatever the fuck he has to learn from the dog dying.
WHICH IS WHY “DOES THE DOG DIE DOT COM” IS THE BEST WEBSITE EVER.
(And also why Matt Fraction is the best, because he promised the dog wouldn’t die.)
Gordon Korman wrote a book called No More Dead Dogs, about a schoolkid who got fed up with how every time there was a dog in a book, it was dead by the end. Also there is a celebration of the joy of theatre. All in all very much in your line of things, I should think.
May 2013
fuck your cake vodka, I have doughnut vodka
and some orange agua fresca, so it’s boozy creamsicle time
SHHH MY FRIDAY IS ON FRIDAY AGAIN SO IT’S BOOZE O’CLOCK
Dear lovely humans I mutually follow, please please please tag your posts about animal abuse, even if they have happy endings or aren’t graphic. That is some shit I cannot ever be having with, and there’s a couple of posts going around that keep slipping through my Tumblr Savioring. (animal abuse is the simplest tag.)
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks. ♥
