cornellWATCH

Sorry, Daily Sun, but you really sent the wrong reporter to cover the Vag(ina) Mo(nologues) this weekend… Not only can Suzanne Baumgarten not spell “twat” (unless they really spell it “toit” in New Jersey), she made the mistake of going there (you know what I mean), and quite tactlessly, at that:

“Not only were the auditoriums packed both nights (over 1000 tickets were sold all together), they were packed with both genders. I was impressed that the male audience members accepted the various stabs at their gender nobly, not letting the show’s feminist nature interfere with their overall enjoyment.” (italics mine)

Uh oh, Suzy Q… did you just make the blanket claim that all feminists are men-hating bra-burners in a review of the Vagina Monologues? Watch out–you might have a herd of violent lesbians at your door soon, whose feminist nature might interfere with your overall enjoyment of your night.

Suzy Q also commits the gaffe of calling the performers girls instead of women: “Most of the “monologues” were actually performed by more than one girl. The inclusion of so many actresses added to the performance’s empowering, original mood.” Barring any comments I might have about the last sentence’s helpless triteness, did it not at least cross your mind that the Vag Mo is a very feminist play, and as such its acting “girls” might not appreciate being pushed into a diminutive, cutesy nomenclature?

Last time I read the Feminine Mystique, I tried to make sure that its feminist nature didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment, but somehow all those uppity girls got on my nerves.

Yesterday, IvyGate accused Alex Cain’s school-sponsored blog “Over the Top” of making light of Cornell’s serious “gorge-related suicide problem.” (You know, that one that everyone talks about but doesn’t actually exist except in hyperlinks to 1994 NYT articles.) The offending statement was at the top of his blog: “They tried to make me go to the gorges but I said no no no.” Sorry, Maureen O’Connor, but I think Cain is just making a joke about the general despair of Cornell’s campus (in the middle of nowhere, cold, snowy) and less about some mysterious “they” (the demons in his head, perhaps?) telling him to go take the plunge. The real issue here is that Ms. O’Connor was so quick to read suicide into a joke about Cornell’s sucky qualities.

The Daily Sun takes a heteronormative approach to internet pretending on Craigslist’s “Casual Encounters” section, posting as a 20-year old “Cornell coed looking to experiment,” and IvyGate takes them to task for their giggly schoolgirl antics.

Too bad they didn’t read Kitsch’s article on gay Craigslist entries (“Hooking Up”), which is infinitely more relevant given that m4m ads comprise up to 25 posts a day, paling in comparison to the m4w’s 5 to 6 average and w4m’s 3 to 4.

IvyGate suggests the Sun do another of their devilish underground “investigations” as a m4m pretender in order to scare Cornell’s closeted population, but is it really worth the trouble? The result will be an assemblage of questioning freshman, closeted frat brothers, and unattractive grad students—not to mention the occasional self-debasing “fat pig” who urgently “needs to be used.” (Bacon, anyone?)