"Fear lulls our minds to sleep"

WMEG went to see Persepolis last week. We loved it! If for some strange reason you have yet to see this film, do yourself a favor, and get your butt in the theatre.

While the film is almost exclusively in black-and-white, you won't even notice. Satrapi's narrative infuses the film with all the color and vibrancy necessary. It's accessible enough to a wide range of audiences so that just about everybody can derive the right mix of laughter, knowledge, and analysis from the story (and is that not the point of film itself?). Fun fact side facts: Anoush (Marjane's radical uncle) is an Armenian name. And with that not-entirely-vital bit of Armenian pride, we have now officially become either our Armenia-radical grandmother or the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Everything is Armenian (or Greek, or Arab, or whatever you like). Just look harder. And put some Windex. Anyway!

Even though WMEG saw this film at San Francisco's Embarcadero Landmark Theatre, allegedly a prime choice for educated city folk (read: white liberal people who donate to Greenpeace and HRC), we could still discern faint head-scratching among our fellow theatre-goers. The mental wheel-turning surfaced: "Oh! Those Iranians didn't all like the shah?" "The British tried to meddle in Iran? And the Iranians didn't like that either?" "There were communists in Iran?!" "People in Iran listen to Iron Maiden and do aerobics?!!!!" Hah! We hope that this film reaches as many people as possible in the "West." It is exactly this type of humanizing, via a fairly universal and popular medium, which can derail Orientalism.

Project Rami! Week 8

Welcome to this week's installment of Project Rami, in which we analyze the latest episode of Project Runway with a focus on Rami Kashou, hunky and talented Palestinian designer with a fondness for draping...

Rami, Rami, Rami. What can we say? He's a great designer, but we fear he may have a bit of the Midde Eastern Male Syndrome. Now, here's a disclaimer: we love many of our Middle Eastern brothers, and fathers and grandfathers and cousins and uncles and other numerous relatives and friends, but our experience in this area-- and we have a lot-- backs us up on the following claim. Have you, fellow wayward Middle Easterners, ever been in a situation in which you are a part of a household which has been invited somewhere, and there is a male family member involved-- particularly, at the helm? Well, then you are familiar with this syndrome, in which the male figure begins exclaiming about thirty minutes before it is actually necessary to leave the house, "Yalla , we're going to be late!" Now, some of us WMEGs of the lady-gendered variety have many things to do before presenting ourselves to others (and especially to other Middle Easterners), including hairstyle, impeccible outfitting, perfect eyeliner, and removal of all excess body hair. As you know, this takes time-- you may know it as being on Arab/Persian/Armenian/etc. Time. Thus, it is never possible to leave for an event any earlier than ten minutes after the scheduled time of departure -- all the while being verbally hassled by the aforementioned male(s) regarding tardiness, leading to his eventual exasperation and decision to wait in the car while muttering to himself and anyone within earshot, listening to Abdel Halim on full blast, and frantically manipulating his worry beads. That, my friends, is a symptom of Middle Eastern Male Syndrome, and while it is generally harmless (as many of our lovely men are), it is there. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!

Anyway, we're thinking that perhaps Rami showed a little of that this week. The challenge: work in teams of two to create an avant-garde look based on the model's hairstyle (and later, to create a ready-to-wear look that echoes the previous in sensibility). Now, we know working in teams can be the kiss of death even for the most talented on this show, and while Rami runs circles around Sweet P as a designer (though we have been known to be fond of her, with the tattoos and the biker past and the baffling name), we thought perhaps he was a bit heavy-handed with the leadership. His ideas were great, as always, but we couldn't help but think that, hey, some of Sweet P's were good too: we personally LOVED the bustle idea! There are never enough bustles on the runway! That would have made for something a little more edgy. And the ready-to-wear dress she made (below) was really quite lovely. Perhaps if Rami sat down, listened to some Fairuz, and played with his worry beads, he would have seen the situation with a little more clarity and realized that, even though she is a crazy ol' white lady (and we say this fondly), maybe she just needed to do things on Crazy Ol' White Lady Time, and things would have been cool. Like when your carful of family members gets to your host's house and you realize you aren't really that late because there is ALWAYS some other family who suffers even worse from time issues and gets there like two hours late. You know?

Well in this week's challenge that was Kit and Ricky. We'll be damned if Ricky isn't the luckiest hambal on this show. We're not sure how he ends up surviving each week, with the crying and complaining and the not-very-interesting designs, but he does. He's like a cockroach! Anyway, we were very sad to see Kit go, because she has consistently been our next favorite after Rami, and she's done some beautiful stuff. We would have loved to see her compete in the finale. Unfortunately this week's design was not one of her best pieces, though the idea sounded really cool. The winning Team Fierce-- Chris and Christian-- totally deserved it, if nothing but for the total outrageousness of the piece, and the ready-to-wear was very cute. Although that coat made by the Sullen Sisters (Victorya and Jillian) was, admittedly, quite ferocious... check it all out for yourselves here.

Oh, Rami. We are very, very glad you didn't leave this week, because it would have been completely unfair, and we know you have a whole lot of gorgeousness in store for us-- a look at your website promises that. But maybe a little compromise isn't always so bad, aiwa? At least next time, consider the bustle! And, um, less draping. We love you, bro.

Peace out, readers. xo

Project Rami! Weeks 6 and 7

This is a little late in the game, we know-- but we ARE on Middle Eastern time, after all...

Welcome to Project Rami, a weekly feature in which we discuss every wayward Middle Eastern girl's favorite Project Runway designer and Pali boy wonder, Rami Kashou.

Aside from being gorgeous, amicable, and an incredibly talented designer (he's done red carpet fashions, y'all), Rami openly discusses being Palestinian and from Ramallah/Jerusalem, stating "Ramallah, Palestine" as his hometown on his MySpace page. We love how he proudly represents. Plus, he apparently got his start designing for his mom and the other ultra-fashionable ladies of Ramallah-- that's how it do! Check out Bravo's profile of Rami here and his website here.

On to recent events in Project Runway-land... last week, Rami won the judges (and us) over with his flashy-fab future-forward response to the challenge of making an outfit out of items found at the giant Hershey's store (yes, candy) in Times Square. While we initially were really skeptical of the challenge, the designers came out with some cute, fun, and inspiring looks, led by our boy who won the challenge (and immunity for this week) with the sweetness seen at left.

This week Rami didn't fare as well by the judges' often boring and arbitrary standards. The challenge: to create a prom dress for a New Jersey teenager. While there weren't any Aqua-Netted 'do's and three-inch acrylic nails in sight like we'd hoped (really), the contestants came up with some pretty good stuff. While Rami's drapey green modern-goddess dress (seen at right) didn't wow the judges (and actually had him placed among their least favorites), we thought it was glam and unique while still being totally appropriate. We did kinda wish it were a more vibrant green, though, and with a shorter skirt, only because his client is young and fun and can totally get away with it. But we're not complaining! Rami is still our number one. In other news, Sweet P totally should have kicked Victorya's ass (her dress did, at least), and Kit really should have won the entire challenge, but that's another story...

Check back next week for the next installment of Project Rami!

"Queer" as a Tool of Colonial Oppression

This ZNet article by a highly intelligent librarian of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, Blair Kuntz, discusses Israel's claim that lack of queer rights is just one more reason that Palestinians require suppression (and oppression), while themselves taking a hypocritical anti-queer stance in policies and attitudes-- oh, and the whole blackmailing and exploitation of gay Palestinians thing.

There are definitely issues with queer acceptance in Palestine, but clearly Palestinians have other more immediate concerns on their mind-- survival, for example? Using the queer card to further decry a people when you don't have the means to back it up is ludicrous, and in doing so, you insult queers as well. Haven't Palestinians been mistreated enough?

Read the article!

introduction

Welcome to the WMEG blog! Some of you may have seen our illustrious MySpace profile (check our links if not). Because we are bookish, scholarly, and creative ladies and ladysirs with delightfully useless degrees in literature, we are expanding our internet terrorism to the blogsphere.

In honor of our colonizers, the British, I thought it appropriate to cite the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of wayward:

wayward

• adjective self-willed and unpredictable; perverse.

Sounds about right, OED!