we all know a real life Alia Khan, don’t we?

 We may not want to cop to it but we all know a real life Alia Khan, don’t we? 

ster·e·o·type/

A stereotype is a belief that may be adopted [1] about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things, but that belief may or may not accurately reflect reality.

Yes, it’s a stereotype but sometimes stereotypes contain a kernel of truth. 

The first ‘Alia Khan’ I knew of was via my brother when he attended the local F.E. college in the 90s.  This female Muslim student dressed in a long, flowing jilbab (jilbabs are basically robes) and wore a headscarf.  Her strict father would drive all the way up to college entrance rather than – heaven forbid! – risk his daughter getting out the car and walking from the college gates on her own.  As soon as she waved goodbye and walked through the doors, it was straight into the girls’ toilets.  Off came the jilbab and headscarf and on went the make up and clothes she stored in her bag. There was something deliciously scandalous about all of this to my young ears.  I had never heard of such teenage Asian rebellion. 

Older and wiser, I have witnessed many Alia Khans in all her various forms.  I remember being surprised when a former pupil dropped by to say hello to staff at the independent Islamic girls’ school worked in.  The girl had honey highlights in her dyed brown, fashionably cut hair, wore acrylic French manicured nails and was dressed in jeans and a top.  This girl attended THIS school?  A school where the headscarf was part of the uniform and we kept a bottle of nail polish remover in the office for girls to use if they came in with painted nails.   

Seeing this girl stroll into school so carefree seemed to me like an affront to the school’s strictly enforced dress codes and rules for nails and make up.  I felt like we should have been ushering her away into an empty classroom or the janitor’s closet rather than have pupils catch sight of her (that was my naivety to think girls had strictly enforced rules on what they wear at home.  I worked there long enough to realise that they weren’t all like that – perhaps a 50/50 split in how many continued to wear their headscarves.  As long as you’re decently covered, you’re good to go).  She was attending college and was warmly greeted by the staff while I couldn't stop marvelling at those nails.  

I’ve heard smug London journalists (because London is the home of smug journalists) talk gleefully about seeing Muslim girls whip off their scarves as soon as they get past the school gates.  They see it as evidence of RELIGIOUS HYPOCRISY AT WORK! whereas as I see it more simply as teenage rebellion.  Isn’t teenage rebellion lovingly cherished in western art forms?  Film, art, literature, music etc.  You’d think they would drop the sneering superior attitude and at least sound vaguely impressed.

I don’t like hearing people talk about Muslim girls in such a way but I’d be a liar if said Alia Khan didn’t exist.  I was her and she was me when I was in sixth form and sat in a pub with my friends during a lunch break, meekly sipping from a glass of coke while getting told off for being there from a member of staff because we were underage. 

Muslims who are less laid back than me have complained to the BBC because they don’t want to see a stereotype perpetuated on TV but whatever they may say, they cannot deny it.  We all know an Alia Khan and – ssshhhhhh!!! – we might have even been an Alia ourselves. 

Hallo.

so i updated my blog for the time in, like, months and it yielded a grand total of 1 viewings.

That's cool.  That's cool.

Okay, I'm a little bit wounded.  i handwrote my post - being all authentic and sharing-is-caring about it.  I bet  MI5 are filing away my handwriting style for future reference as we speak.

If I end up in Gitmo, I'm totally blaming you all.

So anyway, I'm starting from the ground here which is liberating in some ways.  i'm not going to bother check my spellings or capitalising everytime i use the personal pronoun 'I'.  cos really, it's not worth it and my writing is still readable (just a little sloppy).  I'm going to enjoy instead, a freewheeling, stream-of-consciousness writing style where i can type whatever comes into my brain.

I was going to write a review of 'Snow White & the Huntsman' a few weeks ago.  that was until i realised that the entire film that had filtered through my eyeballs had not registered in my brain at all.  like AT ALL.  nothing.  Nada.  I felt like the guy from Memento trying to piece together the memories of my life.  That's usually a good warning sign that the film isn't very good.  Visually, it captures pretty images and steals good bits from other films like LOTR and Princess Mononoke but trying to hang it all together with a sense of narrative and plot was beyond the film makers remit. Also, Kristen spends the entire film with her mouth open catching flies and has grubby fingernails.  I was worried she was going to soil the majestic looking deer creature that bowed down to her.  And Thor has an accent like Shrek.

Instead, I'll talk about Breaking Dawn Part 1 which I watched on DVD.  I thought my love for Twilight had all but died.  My interest has waned with every passing movie.  it feels weird to burn through your obsessive love for something so quickly but the fact that Twilight became a global phenomenon and was suddenly everywhere meant that it ground me down to a nub of apathy.  I've always hated BD.  it's an awful book and terrible conclusion to a once beguiling series.  However... i liked the movie.

One thing that struck me was how indebted it was to the first film of the series directed by Catherine Hardwicke.  At the time of Twilight's release, there were negative stories coming out about Catherine being difficult; making an awful film that had to be rescued by the film editors and to be fair, there were some clunky moments but there was also plenty she did right.  New Moon was full of empty grandeur, Eclipse was action packed leaving little room for romance but Twilight captured the giddiness of first love.  It was romantic.  The two leads had a chemistry and Catherine coaxed convincing performances out of them.  (There was also sparkling which was an epic fail but we won't mention that).  


Watching BD, i suspect the penny dropped for the studio heads that actually Catherine deserved credit for what she brought.  There were so many references to Twilight in BD such as:

• rotating camera shot with 'Flightless Bird, American Mouth' in the wedding scene.
• the sparkly lighting at the wedding just like the prom scene in Twilight.
• the spliced together montages when Bella changes.  
• they used the original music composer

I can only think of four things right now but take it from me, there was a sense of deja vu all the way through the film (you can tell I'm a fan cos I care about this stuff).  This guy who directed BD - Bill whoever - didn't bring much of anything to the table (although an A+ on the honeymoon scene *nudge nudge wink wink*) and yet he got to direct the last two films in the series .  Surely the honour that should have gone to Catherine?  

I've defended her in twilight forums as she's a bit of a divisive figure there - her comments on Rob and Kristen's relationship being one of the crimes against her - but i hope BD was an unofficial tribute to what she did rather than a ripping off of her directorial style.

Weirdly enough, I want to see the final instalment.  I'm not quite as ready to let go of the franchise as I expected myself to be.  There's a tiny spark of passion that's been rekindled.   Weird, huh? 

The Art of Writing: Pleased to Meet You

Two Beds and a Coffee Machine

I’ve been having a little Darren Hayes/Savage Garden retrospective on youtube recently.  As music snob in the 90s I couldn’t bear Savage Garden.  They didn’t inspire much love from the music critics either who wrote them off as derivative and banal.  That didn’t stop the band from being absolutely EVRYWHERE.  They sold millions and I have vivid memories of ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ playing in the sixth form common room.  Good grief, I hated that song.  I’d walk into Topshop and ‘Affirmation’ would be playing with shoppers mouthing the lyrics.  I could hear even my friends sing along.  I didn’t get it.  The only song I could even admit to liking was ‘I Want You’ – an 80s throwback with a prominent guitar riff. 

Savage Garden split up after just two albums and Darren Hayes launched a solo career.  Listening to his solo effort, something in my brain clicked and I finally got it.  What a voice!  Such sincere, heartfelt lyrics!  It all made sense somehow.  It was unashamedly romantic (and strange in places).  I bought Darren’s first two solo albums and I’ve been revisiting them lately.  I found the Savage Garden track ‘Two Beds and a Coffee Machine’.  Listening to it, I was surprised by the lyrics. 

It told a story from Darren’s own life.  Growing up, he was a witness to domestic violence in his family.  I can’t imagine how frightening it would be to live in an environment like that.  It took Darren a long time to come to terms with it.  He said in an newspaper interview, “I was profoundly affected by my childhood and it was time for me to take responsibility for who I am and deal with that.”  Being a performer he expressed his feelings through his music and his family came through (his father was an alcoholic) their problems. 

In the media, Dennis Waterman has been creating waves with his comments he gave to Piers Morgan.  It was all over twitter and has caused fury.  He admitted to hitting his wife because she could argue well and he resorted to hitting her but he made the distinction that "She certainly wasn't a beaten wife, she was hit and that's different."

Erm…

Hearing it from the perpetrator’s mouth, it certainly gives an insight.  For Dennis, there was a line drawn and he didn’t cross it as far as he was concerned.  For the rest of us, it’s simple.  A hit is a hit.  Whether it’s one hit or twenty.  Whether you are battered to the floor or hit across the face.  A hit is abuse.  But of course, for many people, there exists those shades of grey where excuses are given and one can be manipulated into a different way of thinking.  We need to shine a light on those areas and say that physical abuse is not acceptable.  There are many ways to avoid confrontation.  Simply walking away and cooling off would be a good start. 

Reading about Dennis, I feel like there are many stories out there that we don’t hear about.  Perhaps things we don’t want to hear but maybe it’s necessary so that we can come to an understanding as well as educate ourselves on the realities of domestic abuse.  It is possible to make it through for everyone involved.  Surely, every story deserves a happy ending?  

Leap Day

It’s Leap Year Day!  Hurrah!  No one loves me!  Yay! 

Meh.

I’m completely unimpressed by all this women proposing nonsense.  I can’t help but take it personally that I have no one to propose to *sob sob* #imafailureasawoman but you know what?  I don’t care.  I really don’t give a flying ----.  I read an awesome quote on twitter which I’ve posted below:

I think that neatly sums up my thoughts.  To say such things might sound arrogant, like I think I’m too good for marriage, but that’s really not the case.  I’m clearly not good enough for anyone!

Anyway, for an extra day that comes along once every four years, couldn’t we do something more fun?  The whole reversal of genders for a proposal suggests that this extra day has a topsy-turvy quality to it.  Let’s live the whole day backwards!  Let’s have breakfast for dinner, an evening meal instead of cornflakes, elevenses at 11pm, lunch at… well, lunch.  I guess some things don’t change. 

If the Oscars were hosted today we could have had an alternate list of nominees as part of topsy turvy Leap day.  I’m rather disgruntled that Drive was nominated in one category only (which it lost) when it should have been the toast of the Oscars.  It would have been the cult film with its elite rabid fanbase (me included) cheering it on from the sidelines via twitter and tumblr. Its absence hasn’t gone unnoticed.  This fantabulous article from Hairpin gives an illustrated response of the film and this montage showcases all the neglected nominations of this year past: 

I’ve taken a break from Lovefilm because frankly the costs of renting out DVDs don’t outweigh the benefits (films have been crap) but Drive was the last good film I saw.

As part of my topsy turvy Leap day, I think Ryan Gosling, the star of Drive, should in fact propose to me.  Yes!  Come on, Ryan, I’m here, waiting for you to take me out for a romantic breakfast and followed by a sunset on the beach proposal.  A perfect end to a Leap Year Day. 

print, cut out and keep version of 'The Driver'

sad day

I had already written a blog post today but I deleted it because I decided it was too personal and not the kind of thing I’d want to put out into the internet ether.  I’ve been on a crying jag for most of today.  Why?  Well, I don’t really know. 

That’s a lie. 

I do know but if I could sum it up, I would say it was just self-pity.  Just one of those days, you know?  I don’t like to dwell on the negative – I feel like I could get lost in it – I feel like I’m already lost in a fog already.  I’m forgetting what I’m doing; postponing things I should be doing and today feels like two steps backwards. 

I will get through this inshallah.  

The 90s was ace

I've been studiously ignoring the current 90s revival on the basis that I already bought the clothes and lived through the fashion as a teenager – why go through it again?  It kinda ticks me off that I no longer have those clothes any more, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t be able to fit into them.  However, after perusing the clothing racks of Urban Outfitters, digging up old 90s music and reading articles full of wistful nostalgia I have to say I'm kind of onboard with it now.  Nostalgia is such a potent emotion.  It cleans everything up and leaves your memories sparkling with a rosy hue. 

I have hoarder-like tendencies and even though the clothes ended up in charity bags, my boots survived.  I'm now calling them vintage because they totally are according to the 10 years rule:

Being a crafty gal, I keep scraps of paper, card and stickers.  I went through my drawers and found a stash of stickers that used to be given away with magazines like Smash Hits, TV Hits and Just Seventeen.  Looking through them was quite hilarious.  All those forgettable teen idols like… erm… that guy… and… what’s-his-face… along side Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt.  Take a gander here:

Also this one: 

My favourite sticker is this one though:

Smash Hits is no more sadly (R.I.P) but who couldn't love a magazine that has Hugh Grant's and Divine Brown's mugshot as a sticker?