Parents-Children: Into My Frozen Heart

Frozen waterfall
Photo by Gilad Rom
A 7am flight out of Boston equals torture for this West Coast night owl who hasn’t been there long enough to adjust to the time zone. (Which is approximately a week for the East Coast and about three days for the UK.) As I’m digging for my book, a young girl with a huge scowl on her face sits down across from me. Instantly, I see myself — particularly my younger self, though in many cases my current self — reflected in her. She has glasses and a mop of long blonde hair looped in a messy bun. She immediately sticks her nose in a young adult book about ghosts. I have the same shoes she’s wearing, only in black and hot pink, instead of gray and hot pink. We’re both wearing bright patterned leggings. She takes a Purell wipe from her bag and cleans down her seat and tray table. When the dudebro behind her neglects to cover his cough, we both give him death glares. She sees me doing this, and I smile at her when our eyes meet for a brief second.

I start to think about how I’m old enough to be her mother — though her parents appear about a decade older than me — and how perhaps I shall steal this one mostly-formed child. Clearly, we could save some money by sharing clothing. She’s at what Sandra Tsing Loh described as the perfect moment in girlhood: strong, confident, prepubescent.

I also obverse her family, noticing how they are focused on entertainment and what to order from the on-flight menus. In my own childhood, no one understood why I love to read more than most things. Why I preferred to write or tell myself stories, playing with dolls or action figures. The girl takes out a journal and a pile of embroidery thread; no doubt, she’s going to make friendship bracelets. And I am uniquely satisfied that the art of friendships bracelets hasn’t been lost only to Christian camps sequestered from cell towers.

For a million reasons, I do not want to be a mother. Continue reading “Parents-Children: Into My Frozen Heart”

Film Deadpool Is Not a Pansexual Icon

Deadpool's sexual orientation
What box will Deadpool choose?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Deadpool movie since seeing it last weekend. It was not one of my favorite Marvel-based movies. Many people found the movie transgressive, as an R-rated risk for Marvel properties and a reaction against the overly serious DC movies and tones of the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse and Captain America: Civil War films. One of the conversations coming out of Deadpool aka Wade Wilson being turned into a film is Deadpool’s position as a pansexual comic character.

Let me be clear: Deadpool, in no way, shows attraction toward men in the film.

We can argue and debate subtext or queerbaiting all day, but there’s nothing in the entire film for the average straight person to say, “Wow, Deadpool also likes men.” Continue reading “Film Deadpool Is Not a Pansexual Icon”