Kratak uvod u (sve što mislim o) Mallory Ortberg
Mallory Ortberg moja je najdraža osoba na internetu i žena koje biste trebali biti svjesni dok god s njom dijelite Zemlju. Pišem ovo iz sebičnog razloga plamteće ljubavi za nju, zbog koje ne želim da itko zna da postoji ILI želim da svi znaju da je ja volim više od njih. Od prvoga sam prisiljena odustati, a u drugome ne može biti trijumfa (iako je volim 7000 puta više od vas) jer nije važno, jer je Mallory ionako previše za sve naše ljubavi.
U tweetu koji sam zagubila u dubinama interneta netko je za nju napisao da radi stvari koje neće biti izmišljene još nekoliko stoljeća, i to je ispravan opis Mallory, koja je urednica portala The Toast i o kojoj je teško pisati kao o čovjeku. Prebrza je, preduhovita, prepametna, prečudna i premudra za to, jednostavno mora biti vanzemaljac, čudovište ili sfera čiste energije – tako govori moj zapanjeni mozak, lažući mi jer me voli. A Mallory je svo vrijeme samo žena koja ne zahtijeva da je obožavate i klečite pred njom (osim povremeno), nego da stojite ili sjedite i smijete se bijelom patrijarhatu u lice dok mu izbijate zube.
Ovaj tekst je, kako naslov k/laže, kratak uvod u opus Mallory Ortberg. Ispunit ću ga citatima i pretjeranim brojem linkova na koje morate kliknuti, a ta masa čarobnog teksta bit će strukturirana u sedam tematskih blokova. Stoga ugodno sjednite i bolje ne pijte dok čitate. Osim ako ožednite. Što vjerojatno hoćete, jer ovaj uvod je DUG.
1. MALLORY I ZAPADNI KANON
Malloryne šale o zapadnom kanonu ona su najbolja vrsta šale, koja o svom subjektu kaže nešto toliko točno i istinito da shvaćate da ste to oduvijek znali, ali nikad niste tako jasno pomislili. Poznate stvari osvijetljene su na nov način i transformirane u nešto sasvim svježe, i neočekivano smiješno.
Nema boljeg primjera za to od njene serije tekstova Texts From, u kojoj se slavni, uglavnom književni likovi dopisuju sms-om. Kanon je, kaže Mallory, „krcat divnim, sebičnim šupcima“ pa joj inspiracije nije nedostajalo. Prvi je Texts From napisala za Hairpin 2012., a tipkala je Scarlett O’Hara. U studenom će izaći Malloryna prva knjiga, naslovljena Texts From Jane Eyre, a upravo sam istoimeni tekst odlučila citirati. U capsu, očito, piše Edward Rochester:
JANE WHERE HAVE YOU GONE
I AM BEREFT AND WITHOUT MY JANE I SHALL SINK INTO ROGUERY
i am with my cousins
WHICH COUSIN
IS IT THE SEXY ONE
Please don’t try to talk to me again
IT IS YOUR SEXY COUSIN
“ST. JOHN”
WHAT KIND OF A NAME IS ST. JOHN
I’m not going to answer that
I KNEW IT
DID YOU LEAVE BECAUSE OF MY ATTIC WIFE
IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
yes
absolutely
BECAUSE MY HOUSE IN FRANCE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN ATTIC
IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WERE WORRIED ABOUT
IT HAS A CELLAR THOUGH SO YOU KNOW
DON’T CROSS ME
HAHA I’M ONLY JOKING
S književnošću se poigrava i pisanjem listi znakova po kojima ćete prepoznati da se nalazite u tekstu određenog autora ili perioda, npr. Hemingwayevom romanu:
1. Everyone you know respects you. This disgusts you.
2. The door is white and the day is hot. This pleases you.
3. A Jewish man believes you are his friend. This disgusts you.
4. You are a man. A man! A man is a man like a tree is a tree.
Jednaku važnost Mallory daje likovnoj umjetnosti. „Zapadna povijest umjetnosti: 500 godina žena koje ignoriraju muškarce“ naslov je pregleda naslikanih žena i muškaraca koji im dosađuju:
“Hey. Hey. Hi. Hey. Yellow. Girl in the yellow dress. Can you hear me? Hey. Hey. I’m talking to you.”
“Yes?”
“So do you come to court a lot or what”
Postoji i nastavak.
Potpuna su suprotnost tim hladnim i sarkastičnim ženama dva marljiva i pomalo prostodušna redovnika koja pratimo dok kroz niz tekstova izmišljaju umjetnost, uključujući onu bizantsku, renesansnu, biblijsku i prerafaelitsku.
MONK #1: ahhh I feel like I should know this but
how long are necks
on average
MONK #2: little longer
MONK #1: like this?
MONK #2: longer than that even
MONK #1: how about now?
MONK #2: um, it’s kind of close
MONK #1: sorry
MONK #2: no, it’s okay, you’ll get the hang of it eventually
MONK #1: thanks
MONK #2: hey as long as you’re drawing
put a tiny man in the bottom right hand corner
holding a scroll or something
MONK #1: like a baby?
MONK #2: no
just a tiny man
people will get it
Uz kreativne preobražaje specifičnih djela, Mallory se voli zabavljati i idejama koje su široko rasprostranjene kulturom, poput stereotipa.
2. MALLORY I RODNI STEREOTIPI
Ovako, primjerice, počinje dan teškog muškog antijunaka:
He woke up ambiguously. “Hmm,” he seemed to say as he looked warily around him. Time for another day of swords or drugs or making business, whatever his job was.
He lit seventeen cigarettes, because who the fuck cared. “I’m a man,” he announced to the room. “I’m a goddamn man and sometimes I have to make the tough decisions that no one asked me to make and my jaw looks like a shovel and I have an important job, so fuck you,” just in case someone was listening.
a ovako snažne žene/heroine:
She woke up like she did every day: slowly pulling her motorcycle helmet off, then shaking her head slowly back and forth to reveal a long, blonde ponytail. Everyone gasped. “That’s right,” she said, kicking the winning football goal before sliding into a sheer, sexy camisole under a blazer and playing as hard as she worked, “I’ve been a girl this whole time.” One of the guys, the real sexy one, shook his head in slow motion, as if to say “wh-wh-wh-whaaat?” You know the kind. His mouth was kind of open while he did it. He was totally blown away.
dok se ovdje ismijava trop ‘nesigurnih’ i ‘običnih’ junakinja i junaka, koji su zapravo iznimni i savršeni:
“That’s your problem,” her friend said. Normally her friend was all crazy and doing shots and saying “Girl, you need to kick him to the curb,” but not now. Now her friend was being quiet and serious, so you knew it was a really quiet and serious moment. “You would do anything to take care of your friends. But when was the last time you did something to take care of yourself?”
It was true. She hadn’t showered in four years. Her house had exploded and she didn’t even care. She hadn’t eaten in four months, and she was dead.
Vidi još: fatalna žena, ne lijepa protagonistica
3. MALLORY I POPULARNA KULTURA
Podnaslov „popularna kultura“ vrlo je širok pa ću ga jednostavno posvetiti nekim svojim favoritima.
Drugog dana ove godine Mallory je na starom forumu posvećenom Harryju Potteru pročitala postove nekog čovjeka koji tvrdi da je Dumbledore zapravo Ron Weasley koji putuje kroz vrijeme. Odlučila ga je shvatiti vrlo ozbiljno. Tako je nastao Ronbledore, Malloryna opsesija koja nam je podarila i majicu ($17).
Izvor za sve fotografije: the-toast.net
Vrlo brzo pronašla je konkretne dokaze:
J.K. Rowling has long attempted to downplay the existence of Ronbledore in early drafts of the Harry Potter books. A recent court order has released these never-before-seen drafts that have only been the stuff of legends. Until now.
***
It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are,” Dumbledore said, “far more than our abilities.” Harry tried to smile, nodded and turned to leave. “Thanks, Headmaster.”
“Help me,” came a frightened whisper from behind him. “I’m Ron.”
“What?”
“I said…” Dumbledore hesitated. “I said…” A single tear rolled down his cheek. “I said, ‘I love Tron.’ I love the movie Tron.”
“Right, then,” Harry said, and left the room.
“I’m Ron,” Dumbledore whispered after he’d gone.
Ronbledore je divan primjer sulude gorljivosti Mallorynog pisanja, zbog koje se i sami želite investirati u njene naoko blesave projekte, koji u svojoj suštini govore o važnosti popularne kulture, o načinu na koji nas ona i igranje njome povezuju te osjećajima zajedništva i čak ljubavi koje u tim interakcijama povremeno osjetimo.
Na sličan, ali još izravniji način pisala je o svojoj ljubavi za detektiva Columba, kojeg najviše cijeni zbog njegove izražene humanosti – „Columbo is the detective of the people; Sherlock is a detective solely for himself.“
U nekoliko se tekstova Mallory posvetila uništavanju popularnih dječjih priča. Pjesmu Runaway Bunny, o zečiću koji majci zečici nabraja kako će sve pobjeći od nje, a ona mu zauzvrat govori kako će ga sve pronaći, iz tople je priče o majčinskoj ljubavi izvrnula u prikaz otrovnog, zagušujućog roditeljskog stiska i posve nov, jezivo lijep komad poezije.
Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”
This was his first mistake.“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you.
I would swallow my own heart before I let you escape.”“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a fish in a trout stream
and I will swim away from you.”
The little bunny had a small and a desperate magic.“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother,
“I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.
I will always be bigger than you.
I will always be stronger than you.
Your magic is no match for my magic.”
Čitajte dalje i, ako želite, usporedite s izvornikom.
Svakako se mora spomenuti i lezbijski slash fan fiction iliti femslash koji objavljuje svaki petak. Istaknut ću onaj posvećen Mean Girls.
Postoji nešto posebno zadovoljavajuće u njenom uzimanju banalnijih djelića popularne kulture, poput tračeva i tračerskih časopisa ili izbora za najseksi zvijezde, i njihovom preispisivanju u mnogo epskiju formu. Poput ove bajke o Jen i Angelini ili doslovnog shvaćanja izbora za najseksi živućeg muškarca kojeg časopis People objavljuje svake godine (prošle je pobijedio Adam Levine):
“It has happened before,” Channing said. “It will happen again. It will happen to you. Do it now.” Adam squeezed the stone knife so hard he felt the outline of it against his bones. He has a child, he thought. A wife and a child. “I can’t,” he heard himself say. “I can’t.”
Channing rattled his chains. “It’s the Sexiest Man Alive,” he growled. “I watched Bradley Cooper twitch in a pool of his own filth at my feet, and I showed him no mercy with these two hands.” There was blood on his mouth. “While I live, you cannot reign. Kill me. DO IT. Kill me. Kill me.”
Adam lifted a shaking hand and pointed the knife at Channing’s throat. “What I am about to do, I do for beauty,” he chanted.
“What we are about to do, we do for beauty,” the hooded crowd replied. Somewhere, the ghost of Ryan Reynolds smiled.
4. MALLORY I IGRE RIJEČI
Upravo su elaborirane igre riječima kao u prethodnom primjeru Malloryna specijalnost. Nekada je igra šarmantno crna, kao u tekstu koji savjetuje kako djeci priuštiti čarobno djetinjstvo.
Cut off their hair and sell it to a wizard or something
Designate a single door in your house Forbidden. If they open it, lock them in the attic for seven years.
Iznimno je poetična kad doslovno shvaća izreku da svatko od nas u sebi nosi knjigu:
We don’t know how long it’s been there, but it’s there now. This explains the wood pulp we found in your kidneys, and the unusually high levels of printer’s ink in your bloodstream, and the dedication page (“To Albert, with deepest love and gratitude”) we were able to successfully extract from your lungs during the procedure.
A oštro satirična kad se namjeri na ljude koji žele biti đavolji advokati.
Vidi još: Tim Curry i Morgan Freeman čitaju telefonski imenik
5. MALLORY I ZAIGRANA MIZANDRIJA
Na cijelom se Toastu, a posebice u Mallorynim tekstovima, snažno njeguje vesela mizandrija. U tekstu koji je ovaj mjesec objavljen na Slateu, Amanda Hess opširno piše o trenutnoj popularnosti ironične mizandrije, koja nastaje, između ostalog, kao odgovor na godine pogrešnog definiranja feminizma kao pokreta koji mrzi muškarce.
Nicole Cliffe, Malloryna partnerica na Toastu, kaže da je „njihova mizandrija, poput leptirovih krila, prelijepa da bi je se rastavilo i vidjelo kako radi“. Objašnjavati je pomoću stvarnog političkog konteksta „moglo bi pokvariti šalu“. (Jasno je, naravno, da je mizandrija nešto što u stvarnosti ne postoji, za razliku od mizoginije koja je sastavni dio institucije patrijarhata.)
Vjerojatno najsjajniji trenutak Malloryne mizandrije njene su mizandrične uspavanke (i nastavak):
Hush, little baby, don’t say a word
Ever; your sister is talking***
Baa, baa, black sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir; yes, sir;
Kill all men
Potonja se nalazi i na službenoj Toastovoj majici, koju ja, za razliku od vas, posjedujem.
6. MALLORY I TEORIJA
Ništa nije pošteđeno siline Mallorynog humora, pa tako ni akademska teorija. U dva (bar za humaniste) prilično urnebesna teksta, Mallory nam pokazuje kako u odgoju bebe primijeniti rodnu teoriju i Lacana
BABY: [nurses]
ME: you realize you’re literally consuming me
BABY: [nurses]
ME: wow
it’s like de Beauvoir never even wrote The Second SexME: IS GENDER A PERFORMANCE OR A CONSTRUCT
PUT DOWN THAT BUNNY AND ANSWER ME
BABY: [builds tower with blocks]
ME: ok this is very good
under capitalism massive building projects are constructed through wage slavery
and through their sheer size and scale intimidate and pacify the masses
so this is a great comment
BABY: [knocks over tower]
ME: that’s right
7. MALLORY I ČOVJEČANSTVO
Posebno volim tekstove u kojima Mallory u jednakoj mjeri oštro i nježno, a uvijek na način koji ne očekujete, iscrtava svakodnevne male tragedije ljudskih života, poput namjerne samoće,
“My pets will never criticize or talk back to me,” the woman who was so lonely she believed herself happy continued, ruffling one of their ears. “They’re just easier to deal with than people.” While true, she seemed to take this as a legitimate excuse to give up on forming lasting, meaningful bonds with her mental and emotional equals. “I love them like other people love their children,” she said blandly, “if most children died at the age of nine and were happy to eat out of a bowl on the floor and never spoke.”
gledanja vlastitih roditelja kako stare, ili pak smrti. Prvi njen tekst koji sam ikad pročitala objavljen je na Hairpinu u veljači 2012., a zove se Text Messages from a Ghost. Počinje ovako:
October 14th
hey im gaunting you ok
Do you mean haunting
yeah sorry i don’t have any fingers
so im poltergeisting a stick to help me text this
Who is this?
oh sorry im a ghost
So do you live inside this phone
yeah kind of
U njemu i njegovom nastavku, Mallory sms-stilom koji će očito obilježiti rane godine njenog stvaralaštva ispisuje neobičnu i gorkoslatku priču o dugogodišnjem prijateljstvu muškarca i duha koji mu opsjeda mobitel.
Povratak na Hairpin za kraj ovog uvoda dovodi nas do mog još uvijek najdražeg Mallorynog teksta – A Wizard Has Stolen Your Heart! Njega ne mogu ni opisati: čitanje je obavezno.
ZAKLJUČAK
Zaključit ću tvrdnjom da je za mene od svega ovoga možda najvažnije to da Mallory iz dna duše mrzi jabuke (Apples are trash food and you are a human being. Give an apple to a cow), što naše prijateljstvo, u kojem je ja promatram iza drveta jer se ne usuđujem prići, čini neminovnim.
Čestitam, završili ste ne tako kratak uvod u Mallory Ortberg. Nastavite sa svojim životima koji više nikad neće biti isti. Nadam se da vas sirenski zov Mallory neće zauvijek odvesti s ove stranice. Nadam se da ćete se vratiti svom Mufu. Sigurno hoćete.
Morate se vratiti.
Dobro, idite, i budite sretni, i budite slobodni 🙁
odlican clanak!