This might get complicated

(Image from webcomic Subnormality, which is fantastic and I urge everyone to google it after they're done reading this)

When our reading group first talked about this book, I was intrigued. Granted, I made jokes and giggled uncomfortably as immature 21-year-olds are prone to do, I started referring to it as "The-Transsexual-Divorce-in-Rural-Vermont-Book," but I was intrigued and excited. And I trusted that the book would be brilliant and well composed based on the high praise given by my incredibly intelligent classmate (Hi Hannah!)

Relationships are...complicated. Sexuality is complicated. And I think people are just starting to realize how complicated it can be. It is not like everyone can classify themselves as exclusively gay or straight and male or female, there are a great number of subdivisions that modern society is still coming to grips with.

Especially at a time when gay civil rights are still being debated, transgender issues are still an incredibly taboo topic. It makes people nervous and uncomfortable to talk about. Most people would rather bury their heads in the sand and preted that it does not exist. But those people, myself included, are incredibly lucky to feel comfortable and at home within their own skin and gender.

But going beyond the narrative plight of protagonist, Dana, going through a sex-change operation, I am interested in seeing how said operation will affect the other characters, namely between Dana and his/her lover Allison (See! It's getting complicated already.) One thing I noticed was how Allison was struggling to define herself as a lesbian. It was interesting to me that this is an issue she struggles with. She is a woman who loves a man who feels like a woman trapped in a man's body. Why is she trying to label her sexuality right now? Aren't there bigger issues to deal with?

Allison's daughter, Carly, classifies Allison as a woman who is extremely comfortable with her own sexuality. Carly often states that Allison has no problem with nudity or talking about sex with her young daughter. While Carly seems somewhat less comfortable with these topics she seems to accept her mother's stance. Which is why it seems weird that when Allison is faced with somewhat of a sexual dilemma she immediately tries to re-label herself. Don't these type of situations merit more than one word descriptions?

That being said, I'm excited to see how complicated things get as the plot furthers. I'm especially interested to see the relationships stand against the typical gender and sexuality roles.

And for no particular reason I'm including this picture I found of James Franco on the cover of a magazine dressed heavily in drag, just to prove how complicated things can get.

Abu Ghraib Paintings

The first thing I thought when I saw Fernando Botero's painting were that they reminded me of Francisco Goya's Black Paintings. They're similar in their use of dark, neutral shades combined with bold violent colors. They are also similar with their use of slightly distorted figure images and anguished facial expressions. This is particularly true of the first image in Botero's slide. While Botero was inspired by the coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison torture, Goya's inspiration came from his own experience with the Napoleonic Wars (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Either way the two sets of paintings demonstrate the stylistic approach when tackling such a morally reprehensible issue does not have to imitate realism in order to get its point across. The cartoonish approach seems to almost enhance the tragedy of the events they are trying to depict.
The first painting of the series has a dark neutral color palette combined with small bursts of bright, bold colors. Specifically in the attire of the prisoners and, of course, with the blood. The background in comprised entirely of various neutrals in the walls and the floors, the burst of blood spatter on the background of the wall enhances to the dramatic darkness of the location and the prison environment. Interesting how Botero seemed to imitate the traditional image of a prison for his painting when in the real photographs of the prison it looks nothing like a traditional prison. Also the position of the two prisoners are an example of the sexual exploitation of the prisoners forced upon them in order to enhance their humilition, coupled with the fact that they are dressed in women's attire. While none of the original pictures I found (not that I was able to look at them for very long) show that type of humiliation torture strategy exactly it seems a fitting transition for the actual humiliations the prisoners were forced to endure. This, coupled with the brutal demonstration of the one man vomiting blood combines the sexual humiliation and physical violence in one combined image.