Golden Globes 2018: BWQ is back to black

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timesuppinI’m back. Well, I just spent a whole bunch of time binge watching shows, and actually, I also invested many hours catching up on movies I could find on Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon Prime Video, any platform really… long story short, I had to be ready for the Golden Globes last night, and oh, I was so ready. Stating the obvious, no matter all the great winners that went up on the stage to thank their family, friends, co-workers, etcetera, I believe the actual winner was the pin everyone was wearing, the one showing the words: time’s up. The winner is not the pin itself, you fools, but the meaning it brings, because yes, the time is up. Time’s up on what? Anything. Anybody. As many posts on the world wide web show now, time’s up on silence, on waiting, on tolerating abuses, on lack of respect, on people of any gender having to say “me too” when someone else finally has the gut to speak up and say: this person has violated me. We are free to say what we need to say.

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It is not me, it is you crying. Sobbing at every word spoken last night by either a man or a woman (mostly women though), either on or off stage, winners or not of that Golden Globe’s Night that opens the awards’ season in the entertainment industry. On a side note, artists, or how I call them “people of a certain depth”, already have my respect, so please do not judge me if you’ll notice that I am totally “Hollywood team”. I cheered, I cheer and will always do, always. I had so many haters, so many “grounded” people -as they like to be called- disliking my particular predisposition to support this category and most of all this area of the world that apparently you can either hate or love, no in between. Ugh, who knows. I grew up imagining myself in a different world than my own, surrounding myself with alternative realities portrayed in motion pictures, so I am sorry but I am not sorry for taking a stand with and for them, for liking and sharing the same ideas and ideals.

big-little-lies-golden-globe-win-ht-jef-180107_12x5_992We are back to black. How? Black is one of my favorite colors. It is considered to be the absence of light, or better, the absorption of light that can no longer be reflected. To me, black is at the same time power, mystery, authority, fear, elegance, formality, death, evil, aggression, sophistication… rebellion. You need black to have depth and variation of hue in any other color. You all other painters over there, do you agree? You do, don’t you? Black is often given a negative connotation. As many said last night, when Natalie Portman and other goddesses of mine started sharing the hashtag #whywewearblack, black is for mourning, for the losses we had since these stories of abuses came to surface. No, to me black is strength, it means being serious when bright cheerful colors need to shut up for just a second. Of course then I need my beloved deep blood red and my relaxing smoke gray… but now is the time for black. This is why I wore black too, last night: I was not mourning, I was celebrating freedom, of speech, of choice, of being.

golden-globes-2017-1I won’t talk about the nominees, the winners, the host Seth Meyers who had a tremendous monologue, the series and the movies because these are basically details that turned out to be futile in such a night of revelation, of empowerment and awakening and, hopefully, this will last until it becomes normality. Not a movement, not a revolution. Normality. As for the reviews of movies and series that were competing for this year Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s award we’ll have to wait until Thursday, as the day of Thor is the designated weekday for the Binge Watching Queen’s Alternative Reviews. 

Remember, remember, the 5th of November

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In a couple of days Great Britain will celebrate Guy Fawkes’ Night, a tradition that has not become popular in the United States or better, although it was imported with the thirteen colonies, it died out following the growth and the development of America as a separated unit from the United Kingdom. Differently than Halloween, which has become a deeply felt celebration, the Bonfire Night-being apparently too much related to the Protestant, Puritan celebration of victory over the Catholics- lost importance rapidly until it disappeared.

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Who was Guy Fawkes and why am I even telling his story? Well, I learned about him in second grade, when English started to be taught in Italian primary schools during the Nineties, and my marvelous Teacher Michela introduced us to British English and the culture of the U.K. I remember my first carved pumpkin, my first English pudding, my first Christmas cracker, my first singing of Molly Malone, my first reciting of Auld Lang Syne, my first Tea with milk, my first A’s in English class (lol), my first recital of We Are The World -years after it was released in the US of-ha course-ha, and finally my first Guy Fawkes’ dummy made out of my brother and father’s old clothes.

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His story dates back to 1605, when he and his friends wanted to blow up the House of Parliament in London, but he was caught and imprisoned on November 5th, giving birth to the celebration of the English Thanksgiving for dismantling the Gunpowder Plot. Long story short, what they do overseas (but not here in the US) is to celebrate the 5th of November with fireworks, bonfires, and burning a dummy that looks like Guy Fawkes, while children knock on doors asking for “a penny for the Guy” (yes, this happens not even a week after they went around annoyingly trick or treating for All Hallows‘ Eve). Let’s get to the point now: have you ever watched V for Vendetta? Yes? Good! No? Go watch it NOW!

V for Vendetta

Created by: James McTeigue
Based onV for Vendetta, 1988 – DC Comics by David Lloyd and Alan Moore
StarringNatalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures

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In a dystopian future ca. 2020, Americans are almost all dead and fascists rule in England. V, a vigilante wearing a Guy Fawkes’ mask, saves a TV reporter, Evey (Natalie Portman) from rape, and forces her to join him not before teaching her something with what I would call harsh but necessary manners. For 12 months, from Guy Fawkes Night’s Eve to the 5th of November of the following year, V “plays games” with Evey in a sort of “Phantom of the Opera style”. But I am not going to spoil the movie so please, watch it and see for yourselves what happens next.

What needs to be said is that the film provides food for thought: “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” Basically what I understood from watching it over and over (and again last year after my head shaving madness) is that if you want a revolution, it has to start within yourself in order to have effects on society. People who are the victims of oppression and some kinds of distraction, enforced to live wearing masks, can actually remove them and replace them showing their true self. To remove these masks you have to dedicate yourself, to gain knowledge, to get informed, to turn the lights on and face the shadow of society, but you have to repress and sacrifice part of your social self in order to succeed. Evey’s torturing rituals are painful to watch, but after all that pain there is one big truth that gets revealed to her: “You said you wanted to live without fear. I wish there would have been an easier way, but there wasn’t.” She is at complete peace, without having to rely on someone else’s help, looking for it on the outside because she is has strength within herself. Both V and Evey went through traumas before getting reborn like Phoenixes, burning and raising back again from their ashes. “What was done to me, created me” V says, and no major truth has ever been told.

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My previous studies on Freud may influence my perception of this character, but I found fascinating and tremendously relatable (metaphorically!) that he was imprisoned, used as a lab rat, tortured until he reached a point where he could no longer recognize who he was. He wants revenge and freedom from tyranny detaching himself from what it means to be human, to be a social animal, and he chooses loneliness or better, aloneness over community, sharing, relationships. He has an extremely strong mind, but also a kind heart and a just spirit, and what he does, he does it with a purpose. Today he would be considered a terrorist and a psychopath. Although he is highly intelligent, he does not corresponds to the standards of normality.

Let’s try to look at this man from his characteristics more than from his actions, then. V stands for justice, he wants people to know the truth, to wake up and to pursue freedom from oppression. He sacrifices himself so that people can live in a free world and although he loves Evey, (which is quite understandable) he suppresses his feelings for the greater good. Is there anyone capable of doing something like this as of today? I doubt it. Would we need it? Yes. I mean, would you judge Batman for his actions? No, he’s a hero. Just like V, and sympathizing for him does not mean we are sociopath. Understand? Capish? Very well. Now let’s go watch this movie. Again. After all, it’s a tradition!

Christmas Pudding With White Sauce

 

 

Wrapping up the year like… Breaking Bad

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…the series finale of a tv show. “Oh come on yo!It’s over, bitch!” Ok, not explicitly like that, this is just because I am going cold turkey after a marathon of five, yes, five, seasons in less than a week, wait, probably three days, of Breaking Bad and Jesse’s voice is basically stuck in my head. For real. I am literally living in a different dimension right now, my brain is fried but at least I am like, high without using drugs, so yeah, thanks for the kudos, y’all.

How did you like this two thousand sixteen yo? (Yo is always needed, thanks Jesse!) Well, where should I begin? Oh wait, I just recalled a Linkin Park’s song with this! It’s And One, and dang the things and the chills it gives me, still. Wooo, and it actually takes me right where I wanted to start: “keep my distance from your lies”. Yassss. Because, I am not sure it is Breaking Bad’s fault or whatever, but today I have been pondering much. Right when this year is finally getting to an end, my wonderfully tireless brain got back to wonder if people, read human beings, should actually be trusted at all. What is trust really? Uhm, the dictionary shows “n. firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something“. Firm. Belief. Reliability. Truth. Someone. Ugh, ok, no. You actually get a much better overview on wikipedia… I know, not the coolest reference place you would want to rely on, but at least it develops the meaning on several levels: sociology, psychology, philosophy… and whatsoever.

Now, for someone like me who does not even trust herself that much, this is a really big issue. People lie all the time. Fine, not all the time, but at least once and more than once, everybody has lied. I mean, I do it too, and most importantly I lie to myself, but uh, not a big deal, yo. (Yo! Lol) Or maybe it is. One thing at a time though. There are different kinds of lies, as well as different degrees of lying. Sometimes we do it unintentionally just because we have been deceived by our own feelings, emotions, perceptions and, at the end of the day, we all have the chance to lie every once in a while. Remember those white lies? Those harmless lies, said to avoid hurting someone’s feelings? How stupid is this now, really? Shouldn’t the truth be told no matter how much it hurts? Weak people! Weak human beings. I want to be a dog. Dogs never lie.

Why am I even talking about lies now? Oh yeah, because I was thinking about trust. How do we build trust if we are aware of the fact that sooner or later, everyone lies? We live in this era when lying comes so easily while hiding behind a smartphone or computer screen!!! People can be fucking someone right next door and tell you on the phone “oh, I’m just reading the Bible, how about you?” and who will ever know? I mean, I would quote both my darling Brendon Urie and Natalie Portman in Closer (2004) when one sings and the other answers to “tell me something true” by saying “Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off… but it’s better if you do“, but first, I would add “a girl and a guy have” because it all goes back to humans in general, I suppose.  All right, cool. I must be ranting about all this just because I have some trust issues. Who doesn’t, though? Applying my psychology studies to all this I should date them back to my early stages of this wonderful thing called life but for whatever reason, I will not do it. With time I learned that past experiences do not always interfere with your reactions at present. This is just who you are now, end of discussion.

Trust issues can come from two directions, I think: skepticism, which is a healthy attitude, and cynicism, which many consider bad but it is actually pretty useful, and these are the little Santa’s helpers that come into place when trust does not really know where and how to fit in. I think I rely on a mix of both, actually. Skepticism belongs to the ego whereas cynicism rules on my alter-ego, so ok, we got this far. Which personality damages my self-esteem and interferes with this whole issue the most though, is not clear. It will never be. And guess what? It got worse right after I had that amazing idea of changing the way I looked. Go me. I cannot believe that this is all due to a change of appearance. A different hairstyle. Maybe Delilah was right after all. Cutting someone’s hair is basically like ripping off a person’s strength, emotionally speaking. I know. I am totally aware it should not be right, but it is true. And as long as that person staring at me in the mirror does not match with me, myself and I, I will not trust her or anybody else dealing with her. Now. This said, and wrapping it all up, well, happy new year,  you reflected image. I wish you all the best, but now give me my personality back, thank you very much.

Happy 2017 everybody!

Again …on shaved heads, after #USElections

Haircut Madness

0b5e9f68f3e565f98942cc81a0841e02Along with Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta and Charlize Theron in Mad Max, the recurring image when I stare at myself in the mirror is Britney Spears many years ago. I do not recall what year it was, and I may be too lazy to actually google it so I will just use what I remember from that time. The world was under shock because apparently everybody believed she lost her mind just because she shaved her head. Is this the truth? Do we have to be mad crazy, as women, to have our hair cut so short? Should this practice be considered an actual purge, for whatever sin we want to expiate?britney-spears-shaves-her-head-bald-britney-pictures Pink, the singer, had short hair forever and nobody thought she is crazy. I guess it is a matter of seeing a person actually change her look. People are reluctant to change. I do believe this more than ever, now. People fear change, and by trying to deceive themselves choosing what they believe will make a difference, they actually pick the “good ole option” that makes them feel secure. I will go back to this in a minute.

People are reluctant to change

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Buddhists and other “religious” monks get their heads shaved as to show their beliefs, the way they want to disconnect from earthly connections while getting closer to God. The only thing that I can think of while reading “getting closer to God” is that NIN’s song which is way different in meaning, and if you want to know more, just go check it out. Nine Inch Nails apart, this thing of believing that getting your head shaved makes you lose individuality or strength has to stop. Why? Because this is exactly how I felt while seeing chunks of my hair falling, at the hairdresser’s. Yes, I confess. This socially conceived practice as a disruptive way to “say something”,  was embedded in me, until I actually had to personally feel it. And dislike it. Maybe that is why Samson was the very first figure I could feel related to, and I am not even a religious person.  More than this, it was disturbing to think of judgements from people, how they could identify me as a skinhead nowadays, symbolizing aggression in a world where apparently you need to shock the average human being in order to get a reaction. Last but not least, as some said “you look more badass” I was bothered by the thought that boy-looking girls lack of femininity (Ruby Rose is not feminine then? Come on!), leading to the most straightforward question “Are you a lesbian?” …because even if I were, I cannot see how that would be a problem, but the tone of their voices while asking that question made me upset. In other words, I was dead tired of having judgmental human beings define me, and in a way, this is why this blog came into existence.

reasons-why-you-have-to-see-ruby-rose-liveIn so many ways I am now untouchable. Only those who are not devoured by their own preconceptions get closer to me, and as I got used to my aloneness -not loneliness- it is somewhat funny to try them, watch them, and experiment all this on me. Society makes you and others believe that only with Pantene-looking silky hair you can be attractive and pleasing to the rest, that if your appearance does not stick to the norm (a norm created by whom, exactly?) you are an outcast, a problem to be solved, sometimes a threat. But, if you are a threat, then they will try to belittle you because by saying you are threatening they are giving you power, and people are so sensitive to power or what they believe this power is, that they need to kick you out of the game. Although you were not even playing and you honestly were not even giving a damn about it!

nbc-fires-donald-trump-after-he-calls-mexicans-rapists-and-drug-runnersThe results of these elections, here where my home is now, made me ponder (as if being an over thinker at times were not enough). I have always dreamt of “the land of the free and the home of the brave“, willing to be part of it, to live in and on it. I was not considering these humans though. Humans are humans, no matter where you go, and I am sorry (or maybe not) if the way I am formulating this sentence is for any reason offending you. Humans rely on fear. People fear the newly elected President of the United States because of what he said, or did, or said he would do, being scared of his power… without realizing they are the ones giving him power. As part of a -society-, human beings have “the power to give power”, or to take it away as far as I am concerned, as I thought they were doing, judging me, when I feared they could define who I was. Shame on me!

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…and while most humans are freaking out over Trump‘s victory, the future, and what may or may not happen, on a more positive note I would ask: “what if he tricked you (who voted for him and not) all? What if he knew that saying what many wanted him to say he got all the votes he needed, if counting on misogyny, racism, violence, etc he actually got you all at his feet and now he is going to screw you all over by acting humane (in the way humane should be defined)? Oh man, this would be tremendously beautiful. Music to my ears in my imaginative world. An act of intelligence taken to its finest! Is he that intelligent though? We do not know yet. Berlusconi definitely was not. But that’s another story… This may be wishful thinking, but it definitely sounds more interesting than overdramatize, because remember people: you create what you can imagine. Learn how to imagine properly and stop fearing people’s power, because it is you all giving powers to the people you fear. Ugh, wisdom.Guess what getting a haircut can do to you! Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, this view:
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The day I met M at…

Haircut Madness

screen-shot-2016-11-03-at-23-20-25That’s how it started. Or maybe not. There are people that leave their footprints in your life path and they do not even know of how much their presence (or absence) has or had an impact in your existence. Yes, I know, it is a classic. Nevertheless, I like to remind myself that there must be a reason for this coming and going or for that specific thing to happen.

Getting a haircut, shaving my head basically, has to have a reason. I am not referring to the most obvious one: my hair got burnt after bleaching it for too long (no, I did not do it myself!) and I could not stand the frizzy, heavy, ugly look it had. It was unmanageable and I simply did not like it, so the only thing to do was to get rid of it and start anew. What is the not so obvious reason then? What if shaving my head meant something unconscious? What if there is actually something I have to learn from all this?

fullsizerenderThe last few months have been weird and crazy, in a way. Getting back to Italy for the summer had more consequences than expected. I never had surgery in my life until 2014 for example. I never had scars, not “important” ones at least and not so visible. Now I can basically play “connect the dots” with all the scars I have on my body, and this is because I had the last of three surgeries this year, in August, right before I flew back home: Boston. Yes, currently Bean-town is my home and I am a huge fan of that quote that says “home is a feeling, not a place” FYI!

The first two things I thought of when looking at myself in the mirror, with the hairdresser in the background saying “I am sorry” were: 1. I feel powerless, just like Samson, and I am not sure this is ok. 2. The only image striking me since last Saturday is a scene from the movie V for Vendetta (2006) (if you did not watch it you are missing something important, go watch it now!) and the part where Evey gets her head shaved by V:

“V: Fortunately, I got to you before they did.
Evey: You got to me? You did this to me? You cut my hair? You tortured me? You tortured me! Why?
V: You said you wanted to live without fear. I wish there’d been an easier way, but there wasn’t.”

Natalie Portman plays Evey. She then kept her shaved head for a while.

The next step was to check out if other women had an haircut for whatever reason. Sad to say, most of those I found are either actresses or celebrities, and it would be ok if not for the fact that they are ALL pretty women who would definitely look amazing even with a bird nest on their heads. The best is of course my beloved Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) playing Imperator Furiosa. She nailed it. But there are so many …

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Now the “fun” begins. People have commented my change of look in so many ways I actually got tired of hearing any kind of appreciation, fake compliments, judgments, jokes… Today’s mood does not help either, but I will choke all my insecurities with music, as always.