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Andrew has encouraged me to post a sort of companion review to his own over at Andrew's Den, so here goes.

Perhaps the movie's main plot was ruined for me, since everyone and her mom knows the twist ending. I found the incidental details to be more interesting this time around, so I spent a lot of time picking out background information and trying to pierce together what had happened to society in this scenario. Based on the clothing you see on the female extras (heads covered, long-ish, shapeless dresses) it would seem that society has swung back to a conservative mindset. This is corroborated by the presence of the "furniture" in the film, played entirely by females, and seeming to exist as the literal property of the more-powerful. All of whom, you might notice, are assumed to be men (but, then, maybe this is just an assumption of the period in which the movie was made). Furthermore, even though there are prominent supporting characters in positions of authority played by actors of color, there are no women in equivalent positions. Shirl, the most prominent female character in the movie, doesn't think much of being passed from one man to another, nor being peremptorily ordered on to the bed by the antihero Thorn (although her expression in her last scene, when her new boss asks her if she's a "fun girl" and she realizes the bleakness of her future, is heartbreaking). Similarly, the second-biggest female character, Martha, only appears to laze around in short robes and be brutally roughed up by Thorn.

I'll just put it out there that I kinda hate Thorn, and we can move on.

Anyway, this ties in to the most important thing I took away from Soylent Green, something which you see echoed in other futuristic works about overpopulation like Burgess' The Wanting Seed. Although people often accuse those going on about the dangers of overpopulation of being insensitive to the miracle that is human life, overpopulation, and all the ugly conflicts that will rise from it, will result in another kind of insensitivity to humanity. In Soylent Green, we see people being reduced to dumb objects and basic functionality - "furniture" and "books." We also see people being so devalued as to be scooped up by diggers, and (obviously) used for food. It's pessimistic and cruel, but it's not such a far cry from what will happen if we continue to ignore the problem of skyrocketing population and dwindling resources.

I don't know what I can say to add to this article - it speaks for itself in terms of what gay couples have to go through, even in supposedly liberal areas.

http://www.bilerico.com/2010/04/sonoma_county_ca_separates_elderly_gay_couple_and.php

Health care reform and college loan reform getting closer and closer to reality. I'm kind of pinching myself here, since it seems too good to be true. Hopefully the Republicans won't be able to stop the momentum. We know how fidgety they get when confronted with a higher standard of living for all.

I especially like how paragons of good taste and common sense like Glenn Beck keep saying that the American people have had enough, don't support these reforms, consider this part of a socialist conspiracy, etc. Where are these horrified Americans you're speaking for? Because I, for one, am thrilled.

Recently the MLIS program at UCLA hosted a talk by Loretta Gaffney on the development of Family Friendly Libraries. Although librarians tend to be wary of movements to limit access to information in any capacity, Gaffney gave a very even-handed talk on the rhetoric and concerns of FFL. If you weren't aware, this organization was founded in 1992 by Karen Jo Gounaud, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia. Gounaud was concerned about the placement of a LGBT magazine, "The Washington Blade," in a high-traffic area of the local library. The FFL website, however, attributes her burgeoning activism to concern about "age-inappropriate materials" and "Internet pornography." This type of subtly manipulative language is typical of FFL rhetoric, which attempts to equate "family" with "heterosexual couples with children." By extension, they are implying that LGBT reading materials and individuals are somehow disconnected from family units, and, even more maliciously, that LGBT concepts are deliberately harmful to children.

As Gaffney pointed out in her talk, groups like the FFL often argue that they should be allowed to air their views if freedom of speech is truly something we support. That is, the public should hear both "pro-family" and progressive views on this debate. However, many people would argue that the removal or seclusion of LGBT materials is not freedom of expression, but rather prejudice; that the placement of anti-gay reading materials, for which Gounaud and the FFL successfully lobbied in Fairfax County, doesn't count so much as free speech as hate speech.

This isn't to say that parents don't have the right to instill particular values in their children. However, mothers and fathers should have enough confidence in their own parenting that exposure to different views won't undermine their kids' beliefs. Furthermore, if parents are concerned about what their children see at the library, or what they might be checking out (another hot topic for the FFL), they should make it a priority to accompany their kids to the library and/or discuss what they're reading. Protecting and educating your children doesn't have to mean censorship for the wider public.

I wish I could come up with a suitably clever and sweeping statement to introduce myself, but I suppose you'll have to settle for random thoughts about my life instead. I've been trying to decide between a few different career options - academic libraries, archives/special collections, public libraries - having only begun seriously learning about the field a few months ago. As much as I gushed in my application essay about helping underprivileged kids through literacy (and I did mean it!), I'm leaning towards academic or archival librarianship at the moment. I always was such a nerd, and besides, I've heard that there's not much room for innovation or promotion in public librarianship. The next step would probably be to take more archival/special collections classes, and go talk to the professors with that area of expertise. Now I'm just kicking myself for not taking the History of the Book class last quarter - I thought it sounded intriguing at the time, and now I'm doing a term paper on that very subject! Well, hindsight is 20/20.