Pink or Blue? F**K YOU!

Enough already with the goddamn "Boy" and "Girl" crap.  Really, enough.  I've had it up to here with the fucking "blue is for boys" and "pink is for girls" idiocy.  I've had it with making a normal everyday object, turning it pink, and then saying "it's for girls, yay!" It's  Darth Vader's red lightsaber! Only boys can touch it!  Now it's pink!  Yay girls!

Shut the fuck up with that bullshit. I had an encounter a couple of years ago about this crap with an asshole and I think it's high time this ended.

There are pink versions of every toy you can think of.  Is a piano not going to be able to be touched by a girl if it isn't pink? Is a soccer ball going to melt if it is kicked by a girl and it is not pink, what if her sneaker is pink?  There's even a Transformer that is pink, Arcee. Seriously??? When the hell did the ROBOT TRANSFORMERS grow boobs and dicks?  I had no idea that they were male or female.  Last I checked they were ROBOTS.  And I'm sorry, but I played with Transformers as a little girl and I was never burned, lightning did not strike me, nor did I end up a lesbian. 
And don't think that this is just the feminization of "boy" toys.  It works both ways as well.  Now "girl" toys are becoming more masculine by coloring them more "manly" colors.  For example, the LeapPad series comes in standard "unisex" green and the "girl" option is pink.  Gel cases can be found in "manly" blue and purple (though some may argue that purple still means they're "fruity").

The Easy Bake oven, which only came in one color years ago, now comes in "girly" pink, light blue, and purple.  The website itself is disgustingly infuriating as well as it is literally called "Easy Bake Cooking & Baking Games for Girls!" The whole website, including the videos and the links, are directed towards girls.  There's no, "Hey so you want to be Mario Batali when you grow up" or "Gordon Ramsay's tips on how to make amazing Beef Wellington in your Easy Bake Oven".  No, there's none of that.  The whole site is this overly cute, overly frilly, overly girly, piece of crap that would make any boy feel like there was something wrong with him if he liked that sort of toy.  Trust me, it does.  My oldest son loves to cook and asked for an Easy Bake Oven.  We went to the store to look for one and I hate to say it, he fell into the trap of the whole "girl" "boy" bullshit.  It's hard to teach gender neutrality at home when his peers make fun of him for wanting to jump rope instead of shoot hoops, for wanting to read a My Little Pony book instead of Iron Man.  So I don't fault him for chickening out and changing his mind. Besides, he cooks in our home oven now anyway, so take that Easy Bake.

I got into an argument with the drive up teller at McDonald's (please no hate mail. I know McD's is gross, but once in a blue moon isn't going to kill them) because I refused to say I wanted the "boy toy" as opposed to the "girl toy".  I kept saying that my children wanted the stuffed bear toy that came with the meal and she kept asking me if they were boys or girls.  I insisted that it didn't matter what gender my children were, they just wanted that particular toy!  And mind you, the "boy toy" was a piece of crap football player thing.  What the hell do my kids know about football?  They're 7 and 3.  They want a stuffed animal!  So I pull up to the window to collect the meals and I ask the woman to make sure that apple slices are in the bag (they forget) and when she notices the "girl toys" in there, she says "Oh no! You have boys!  We need to change the toys NOW!!!"  Um, no you don't.  They're not going to magically sprout boobs just because they're not playing with a "boy toy".  The woman looked at me very strangely when I told her not to change them and said "Whatever".  To this day, I refuse to say "boy toy" or "girl toy".  I can't.  It's just bullshit.

And mind you, it's not just directed toward children, this moronic brainwashing of gender specification  also targets (supposedly) intelligent adults.  The gun industry is making a killing on "Guns for the Ladies", that are pink or leopard print, and that fit in your purse or clutch. They even have PINK BULLETS!  Seriously!!! Now we are gender specifying how we kill another human being?!?!?!  Look, I'm not a fan of guns (don't care if you are, I just am not) but if I am going to shoot someone who is about to hurt my children, I could care the fuck less if it had a Hello Kitty logo on it, a fuzzy case, or was pink.  Jesus Christ!  Come on people!!

Don't even get me started on Bic for Her. I kid you not, their tag line is "A ball pen essentially for her!"  Seriously?  Now I need a special pen to write with because my dainty girl fingers can't handle the man pens?  What does a woman need this "essential" pen for?  Do I use it to mark my menstrual cycle on the calendar?  God forbid I use a plain ol' man pen for that!  I might get pregnant! Maybe I should write my shopping list because only girls do the shopping!  Maybe I can use it to score all the cute boys I know, because after all I am just a dumb girl whose only interests are boys, boys, makeup, boys, hair, makeup and boys!  Mean man pens are too hard to write with and if I make a mistake, they hit me!

You'd think that in this day and age, this whole bullshit of "boy this" and "girl that" would be a thing of the past.  Sure, there are differences between men and women.  I can't pee standing up (without making a huge mess) and they can't have a baby (although why is it that when I'm the pregnant one, it's always "we're" having a baby).  But certainly, it is high time to change the toy store sections from Pink (dolls, cash registers, kitchens, mops, beauty products) and Blue (sports equipment, action figures, toy guns and weapons, video games, tools) to just sections labeled "Stuff for ALL KIDS".  This way, more boys and girls won't have to feel ashamed or different for shopping outside of their "color".

Video Killed......No One

Hi.

My name is Alessia.

And I play violent video games.

Now according to recent pundits and talking heads, that statement alone should have you running away from me screaming in terror and ducking for cover.  According to these same pundits and talking heads, the statement above also relegates me to being an insane, mentally unstable person, who loves guns and killing children. 

Let me just start off by saying that I hate guns. I'm terrified of them, which I think is the ACTUAL point of a gun.  It can end your life in a fraction of a second. And I'm pretty happy being that whole "alive" thing, so I make it a point to stay as far away from real guns as possible.  (Much to my husband's dismay). 

Notice I said "real guns".

Now on the flip side, you get me the BFG 9000 (that stands for Big Fucking Gun in the DOOM video game series) and I will gladly blast everything that has a pulse within 100 feet of me.  Yes, even cute puppies and kitties.

Why, you say?  BECAUSE IT"S NOT FUCKING REAL. That's why.

I am so fracking tired of the folks that come out after a tragedy such as Newton or Aurora and blame the "violent video game industry" for these horrific acts.  Video games are not the cause. Mental illness is the cause.  People who can't discern reality from fantasy are mentally ill, they don't become mass murders because they mastered the eviscerating finishing moves in Mortal Kombat.  (Oh, and FYI, I've played MK since its inception in 1992 and NEVER ONCE have I ripped anyone's spine out, launched harpoons from my face, or turned anyone into ice only to smash them to bits and disintegrate them.)  A mentally ill person will discern violence from anything.  Wasn't it David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer, who claimed his neighbor's German Shepherd was talking to him and giving him orders to kill?  Did anyone blame Pong for his violent crimes?  Was slapping a 16 bit ball across a screen the cause for his wrath?  Was Pong even invented when the Son of Sam was shooting people at random?  (Let me check: YES! Pong was developed in 1972, Berkowitz acted out in 1977). So there!  Did anyone blame the violent video game Pong for the Son of Sam's crimes?!?!

No.  They blamed his mental illness. 

Are we getting dumber or more paranoid?  Why can't people acknowledge that crazy people exist and need help, rather than try to point the finger at what they think is the cause.  In the 80's it was heavy metal that was blamed.  Remember when Judas Priest was on trial because some idiot kids decided to commit suicide and one of them "missed" and ended up blowing half his face off and surviving?  Yes, it was totally Judas Priest's fault for creating such eeeevil hits like "Turbo Lover" and "Hell Bent for Leather".  Hell, if anything, the gay undertones should have made anyone want to strap on some boots and a corset and find the nearest fetish party, but no Cletus shoots his face off and Judas Priest is blamed. 

 

 

What about the Dungeons and Dragons scare that had parents confiscating 20-sided dice and pewter wizards from the hands of their innocent children for fear that "witchcraft and wizardry" would lead them to "teh devilz" and suicide? 

The fact of the matter is, I come from a generation that grew up with video games. As a child, I held the Atari 2600 and the Colecovision in my little hands and jumped over crocodiles, swung from vines, and dodged cobras in Pitfall. I jumped barrels and avoided fireballs all in the hopes of saving the princess from a fierce gorilla in Donkey Kong.  I strutted about as I defeated Zaxxon, and helped save the world from evil terrorists (with my brother, of course) as freedom fighting Contras.  And naturally, I've evolved as my game systems evolved.  I went on quests for Zelda, I fought vampires and Dracula in the far off land of Castlevania, and I landed on the planet Zebes and defeated the Queen Metroid. 

And then, I got my first taste of blood. Zombie blood, that is, when I first visited Raccoon City and stocked up on ammo, honing my talent for the "head-shot" and making sure I was always within an arm's length from danger.  War games ensued (though I don't much care for them because I suck at first-person shooters), followed by hand-to-hand combat with worthy opponents who would dismember me (or I them) at the drop of a hat (or command by Shang Tsung).



On and on, the list is endless of the games I have played and creatures I have killed.  Whether human, alien, robot, ghost, undead, vampire, zombie, dog, cat, monster, or any other living creature, I have killed it.  Sometimes, the kills are clean and simple. Other times, brutal and gory.  Sometimes, I've kicked people off of cliffs, beaten them to death with a baseball bat, run over them in my Camaro, or stolen their money and fled the police.  I executed a hit for a Mob Boss once and then beat up a hooker just because I felt like it.  One time, I even killed my partner.

Sounds terrible doesn't it?  I'm a violent person, aren't I?  I'm sick in the head, right?

Not quite. 

You see, there's something sane people know and understand that mentally ill people don't.  Reality is not fantasy and vice versa.  I would NEVER in a million years do any of the things in video games in the real world because DUH how stupid do you have to be?  Ok Ok Ok, I admit, that if the zombie apocalypse were to visit my actual front door, I would shoot them in the head, but that's just a big "if" and not likely to happen (famous last words, right?)

And yes, I will fully concede that sometimes people use violent video games as an excuse for their behavior. Case in point, the Black Hawk pilots who used civilians as target practice and who could be heard on their coms laughing and joking about how it was just like "Call of Duty" and "Medal of Honor".  I would post the video here, but it really is too disturbing. Google it. You'll see.  Even in this case, I don't blame violent video games for their behavior.  They're soldiers in a war.  You can't tell me that a mental break is out of the questions. And in no way am I excusing their behavior of claiming they were insane, but psych evals of our soldiers need to be improved as well as the length of their tours and re-ups, but that's a whole other blog post all together.

So what have I been trying to express in this disjointed blog?  Basically, to the talking heads and pundits, quit placing blame where it isn't merited.  Violent video games are not the reason why people shoot up schools and movie theaters. A failed mental health system is.  A failure to diagnose, to care for, and to keep caring for people who have severe mental issues is to blame.  Not Duck Hunt, or Mario Kart, or Final Fantasy, or Resident Evil.  If that were true a HUGE part of Gen X'ers would be rampaging killing machines.  Instead, we're 30-something year old moms and dads who revel in the 30 minutes they get after bedtime to hold that Xbox/Playstation/Wii controller and save the world.