The Tradition of (fictionalised) Tweenaged Girl Killers has gone Apoplectic

(Tweenaged girl killers = girls aged 9 to 12 who kill)

I am, of course, referring to the epic, ballistic (literally) and inimitable, 11 year old murderess, Mindy Macready, aka Hit Girl (from the extremely violent and slightly surreal, comic/film Kick-Ass).

Mindy Macready/Hit Girl (film version, played by Chloe Moretz):
 
I can’t help but to be in awe of such ruthless and accomplished murder in one so adorable. It’s wrong, I know, very, very wrong. Murder, and the glorification of it, is wrong. And it’s even wronger when the glorified murder is committed by a ponytailed waif. So why am I so besotted? A few possibilities come to mind:

- I like to see portrayals of strong female characters in fiction; and this pre-pubescent, gun-toting, ninja assassin, is certainly that.

- Watching Hit Girl’s ultra-violent takedown of the bad guys gives me a kind of catharsis, tinged with vengeance, for remembered childhood feelings of disempowerment and fear.

- I’m psychotic.


Other tweenaged girl killers I admire:

12 year old Mathilda Lando (from the film Leon: The Professional).
M.O: Firearms.
Admittedly, Mathilda didn’t actually kill anyone, but she had murderous intent, and she knew how to clean a gun! I suspect that it was only an unnaturally instilled abhorrence to murder (I blame society) which kept her from becoming a successful “cleaner”.

13 year old Rynn Jacobs (from the novel/film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane).
M.O: Poison.
Admittedly, Rynn is one year too old to be a tween, but…bite me, she’s still very young!

12 year old Regan MacNeil (from the novel/film The Exorcist).
M.O: Inducing heart failure in priests/throwing people (preferably priests) down long flights of stairs.
Admittedly, Regan is portrayed as being possessed by a demon, but I think the whole “demon” thing is just an allegory for Regan’s (and all girls') natural transformation into homicidal puberty.

12 year old (kind of) Eli (from the novel/film Let the Right One In).
M.O: Persuading others to kill people for her/doing it herself using her (very strong) hands and her (very pointy) teeth.
Admittedly, Eli is actually a centuries old vampire, as well as being a castrated male, but since she ‘lives’ as a 12 year old girl (albeit one who drinks human blood and shuns daylight), I’m including Eli in the list.

Samuel Beckett Quote:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

I think I will make this my mission statement.

Generalized Abstractions and Long-Winded Sentences are giving me a Cranky

In my quest to understand the theories of Karl Marx, it might be better if I read Marx for Dummies, instead of The Cambridge Companion to Marx. By this, I don't mean to debase the For Dummies collection, of which I've read a few and found to be an informative and helpful introduction to various subjects, unlike the Cambridge Companion, of which I am meaning to debase.

I've read about a third of the 'Companion' and found that it uses A LOT of words to say a small amount of stuff. Such verbosity can be OK, if it flows with coherence. Unfortunately, the Companion's verbosity flows like a river of congealed lard. I've just finished the 4th chapter and, since each chapter is written by a different person, I was hoping for some improvement. But, alas, so far, each writer has chosen to write in the style I've named "Obfuscatory Academic"; a style I am being very much frustrated with!

Here is an example from the chapter titled Science: Realism, criticism, history by James Farr:

"The philosophy of science, in Marx's terms, should reflect on and reconstruct the practices of the social sciences in such a way as to help prescribe the development of theories that are rigorously and self-consciously historical, both about the past and the future, and whose subject terms refer to the powers that individuals or classes have or do not have in certain social relations." (pg 122)

My best interpretation of this sentence/paragraph is that Marx believed that the study/development/progress of Science should be directed by...uh...what a society needs to ensure it is fair...??? (I'm struggling greatly with understanding what the hell 'rigorously and self-consciously historical' means). Whatever the case, I was disappointed to discover that Marx had NOT, in fact, dabbled in science, as I was led to believe by the chapter heading. Sadly, he did not partake in a little bit of Alchemy, nor did he discover an exotic plant or animal. Perhaps it was for the best, though, that he stayed out of the laboratory. Had Marx, with his ingenious mind, been obsessed with the transformation of lead into gold, well, he might not have been so inclined to turn his energies to the plight of the proletariat (which, incidentally, would be a great title for an adventure series).

I Defy the Third Law of Motion

I have no mass. I have no momentum. When I collide with other bodies, they feel no impact. There is no distortion in their integrity. I act upon them with neither equal, nor opposite, force. I am a void.

Feminism, by Any Other Name, is Still a Rose.

There are some who believe that, since Feminism is meant to benefit all peoples, its name is sexist, as it appears to privilege one group of people, ie females. Some have suggested it should be named so as to reflect its broader range, eg humanism or peopleism (ok, I just made that up). Well, my answer is this; if we're gonna change Feminism to Peopleism, we're gonna have to change Mankind to Peoplekind.

I rest my case.

PS: And if we change Mankind to Peoplekind, somebody's gonna have to re-record the whole moonlanding - "one small step for..." - though, this shouldn't be too big a stretch if the moonlanding hoax theory is to be believed.