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I know it's the end of the semester, so my comments on my outside talks are delayed, but regardless, I went to see Sherry Ortner talk about flim, watched the screening of Slippery Slope, and went to Kate Bornstein's performance at Villanova.  Sherry Ortner, of course, made an impact on me.  I don't know if anyone else ever feels this, but sometimes when I get to know a person I am baffled that they can really exist in this world just like that.  There have been people around Bryn Mawr that I've felt like that, and Sherry Ortner was like that too.  Her world was so academic and when she spoke, it sounded so academic.  I guess I'm being judgmental, and maybe she had a whole other side to her I didn't see.  But from her talk and her conversation in our class, I felt so disconnected from her.  I never want my life to be so theoretical - spending time writing essays about women and film.  But maybe that's what her passions are - and I shouldn't judge.  I wasn't overly impressed by her talk on film that I went to.  I always imagine speakers as being engaging and so full of ideas that they are excited to speak to an audience.  Sherry Ortner quiet clearly read from a piece of paper.  I'm not a giant fan of public speaking, but I know that reading directly from a paper is a no-no.  It's fine if she is deathly afraid of public speaking, but then I don't think she should volunteer to do it.

Slippery Slope was entertaining.  It's especially interesting to think about in light of the sex work unit we just did.  Is producing a porn movie have the same affect as being a porn star?  Or is it somehow worse because you are enabling a woman's body to be expoited?  I know the point of the film was that porn was just actresses and actors doing a job.  There was a scene when the main character looked at the two main porn actresses and one had a baby and one was (maybe?) reading a book and she realized that they are just people.  I think I would be able to produce a porn movie even less than being in a porn movie.  I know it's a woman's right to chose what her work is, but I would feel as if I was perpuating the cycle of abuse to a woman's body by producing a film that could potentially do just that.  The film was interesting though, because it did portray a porn movie in a way that isn't bad, or disgusting, or perverted, like porn is usually seen as.

Then, of course, there was Kate Bornstein.  I realize, looking back at the semester in this class, that I learned a lot.  I didn't agree with a lot of what we did, I didn't like a few of the speakers I saw, and a lot of the time I was frustrated.  But I did learn about a whole different world that I didn't know existed, and whether I chose to participate in it or not in the future, at least I saw it and learned a little about it.  I wasn't a giant fan of Kate Bornstein's performance, just like I wasn't a giant fan of her book.  But thinking about it, her life goal isn't to please everyone.  In fact, it probably isn't to please anybody at all.  She is just being whatever she is, and writing about what she thinks the world needs to hear.  And even though I don't like it, I think I've come to respect that she does it.  Because it does help people.  And I probably shouldn't have been so openly cynical about it.  (I apologize to any I might have offended).

So, there it is - the three talks I went to and a little post-class summary of how I feel.