things that you hear
Jun. 28th, 2011 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bkSo I decided to watch Adam Savage's TED talk about prop making. But I didn't get very far into it before my attention was derailed.
There is a point where he is showing a photo of a person holding a dodo skull in their hand. The person's fingernails are painted red.
Adam: "I found this lovely piece of reference, this is someone selling this on eBay. It was a woman's -- clearly a woman's hand -- hopefully a woman's hand --" [laughter from the audience]
And he goes on to talk about how the size reference of a hand helped him sculpt an accurate dodo skull.
Do you see it? He hopes it's a woman's hand. He hopes it's not a man's hand. He hopes we're not unknowingly looking at a photo of a male wearing nail polish. If we were, it would be alarming and laughable.
This is a transphobic joke. You could argue that he probably wasn't thinking about trans people and was just... just... what? Why is violating gender expectations funny? Why did the audience laugh? Whose identity are they laughing at?
It just makes me sad, because he probably doesn't have any particular conscious hatred of trans people. He's just regurgitating the assumptions that are pervasive around him. You'd think such a smart guy could do better than that. But a lot of the time the reality (and it's a reality I hear around me every day) is that usually people who could, don't.
There is a point where he is showing a photo of a person holding a dodo skull in their hand. The person's fingernails are painted red.
Adam: "I found this lovely piece of reference, this is someone selling this on eBay. It was a woman's -- clearly a woman's hand -- hopefully a woman's hand --" [laughter from the audience]
And he goes on to talk about how the size reference of a hand helped him sculpt an accurate dodo skull.
Do you see it? He hopes it's a woman's hand. He hopes it's not a man's hand. He hopes we're not unknowingly looking at a photo of a male wearing nail polish. If we were, it would be alarming and laughable.
This is a transphobic joke. You could argue that he probably wasn't thinking about trans people and was just... just... what? Why is violating gender expectations funny? Why did the audience laugh? Whose identity are they laughing at?
It just makes me sad, because he probably doesn't have any particular conscious hatred of trans people. He's just regurgitating the assumptions that are pervasive around him. You'd think such a smart guy could do better than that. But a lot of the time the reality (and it's a reality I hear around me every day) is that usually people who could, don't.
