Saturday, November 27th, 2010

mothwing: Silhouetted Minerva and Severus sitting in front of a Christmassy mantlepiece (Hat)
Title: Talented.
Rating: G
Credits: =cloaks's  Vintage Texture Pack V, ~redheadstock's light brushes and light swirls, ~Eterea86's beautiful corner brushes, and Hogwarts Crest, (C) Bloomsbury PLC, baby by ~o0oTamaraStocko0o. Reference: an anatomy book with a cat skelleton,  
Characters: Minerva McGonagall and child.
Summary: I can imagine Minerva marrying young, the marriage not lasting very long and both taking turns parenting their child, though said child would have had to stay with her father most of the time. Here she's enjoying a rare stay at Hogwarts.  



Other parts in the series:
00. Cover
01. Loved
02. Timid
03. Daring
04. Proud
05. Careful
06. Playful
07. Brave
09. Busy
10. Talented
13. Stern
16. Scarred
mothwing: "I can't be having with this" next to the grim looking face of Granny Weatherwax (Granny)
When his weird American aunt dies, Matthew's cousin Sam comes to live with Matt, his SAHD and mother, and soon makes social life very difficult for him and his friends. They decide to give Sam a second chance if he can prove himself by infiltrating the local girl gang ("The Bitches". Yes.) as a girl, but soon changes and things go ~out of control~, the more so when Sam is predictably hit on by the class heartthrob, gets in touch with his emotions and falls for a girl, etc, etc

This book is one of the recommendations for queer fiction in one of the most popular German textbooks in the country, so obviously I had to investigate. I was disappointed very soon. In my opinion, if there was some kind of shitlist that warns readers of books which include trans- and homophobia in spades, "Boy2Girl" would definitely need to be on it.

I can't even put to words how much I loathe the entire "cross-dressing is hilaaaaarious! Especially if MAAB people do it!! But only so long as they get reaffirmed as cis, straight, manly masculine guys pronto!!"- thing. It's fucking annoying, and I don't get what the appeal of this book would be to cis/het people, either. Does it say to them that cross-dressing is only for wacky comedies? That, following the blurb, "hilarity ensues" once you overstep the reinforced steel boundaries of your gender? Because it certainly doesn't show that it's ok to do just that to me - there are scenes in which that seems to be the case, but mostly, there is a character to add a judgemental voice to the choir as soon as someone does the overstepping, which might be realistic, but unhelpful.

None of this wouldn't be redeemable if it wasn't cut off after the scene in which it is revealed to the general public that our hero is "really a boy" (uuugh big reveal scene ugh), and even though his entire character changed a lot (and for the better, seeing as how he seems to be much happier by the end of the book) it's unclear what will become of this change once he,  back in his male role, is no longer required to be ~girlish.

My biggest problem is that we get to read the voices of all characters apart from Sam, so there's no saying what he takes away from this, what his views and feelings are.

So, did I miss anything? Is this secretly good and I missed something because I was busy facepalming over people going on about "the g-word"?

And why anyone would want their kids to read this mess?
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)

I have the sneaking suspicion that there are more and more aggressive and stereotypical gender-norm affirming messages in today's German EFL books than in the ones we had in my school days. You may say that I am only saying that because I have only vague and fond memories, but I checked. I couldn't find examples similar to the ones I fond in today's EFL books anywhere in the eighties editions I have at home.

While working with the new editions during the last half year, I found gems like these: 

1. In the noughties edition of Green Line A1 for learners in their first year there's a dialogue on various school activities and the plans people are making for the weekend. It's a very short dialogue and briefly runs down the various activities the school offers, their times and places, and then includes an exchange along the lines of: 

"Oh yes, we could go to a concert, there's this band I like, called FourYou..."
"Oh, not a boy band, Donna! Ask another girl to come with you, I want to play ball in the park with my friends instead."

2. Also in the noughties edition of Green Line A4, there is a dialogue entitled "Football for girls?" in which two girls debate whether a team for girls would be a good thing to have at their school. One argues that girls "are just not as good as boys" and therefore a football team for girls would not be a good idea, but then acknowledges that it might be a good idea to try out a team, anyway, and see who shows up. In the end, she still says that boy's football is better because of their butts. Because girls cannot like football for the sake of the sport, they must like it for the sake of the players.

3. In the 2001 edition of Camden Town 4, the book for the Realschule, we have the usual national stereotype text in the first unit. What's typical for US America (fast food and chewing gum), what's typical for Great Britain (queuing and tea), what's typical for Germany (according to my student, who had to think about this for a couple of minutes, it's "Potatoes.")? That sort of thing. Our protagonists eat in a fast food restaurant, discuss national stereotypes (fast food is apparently super different in Great Britain's McD's), and then they decide what to do with their afternoons, leading to this exchange: 

"We could go shopping!"
"Ugh, Shopping is a girl's disease!"

4. Another one from the Green Line series,  this time A6. They have an excerpt from Nick Hornby's "Slam". Not a bad idea as such - there is a learner's edition that goes with it which they could read after reading the excerpt, and it's in a series on "Growing up". My problem? Slam offers the  teen father's perspective on a teen pregnancy. While it's a good thing that there is someone who writes a book about teenage fatherhood in the first place, in A6 this appears to be the only text on teen pregnancies after a lengthy unit on the perils of alcohol intake and drugs. Also, there's the casual transphobia, among a lot of things that made me uneasy about Slam.

So, you might think this are really minor things, but usually, people make very careful decisions on what is supposed to be included in those very short recorded dialogues and why.

So why is it so vital to remind today's EFL learners of what is proper behaviour for their gender in their English classes? Why do ten-year-old kids need to learn that it's embarrassing for boys to like boy bands? Why do fourteen-year-olds have to be told that shopping is for girls and that it's highly unlikely that girls can be good at football and should look at butts instead?

Profile

mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Default)
Mothwing

January 2022

M T W T F S S
     12
345678 9
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31      

Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Saturday, August 30th, 2025 05:22 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios