Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Milwaukee Brewers

The Brewers have a name that represents a product you could buy in a grocery store. Anyway:

For Feminist Theory, we're reading Lauren Berlant's Cruel Optimism. Berlant doesn't like the way the America's problem with weight gain has been framed as an "obesity epidemic". One problem with "obesity epidemic" is that it frames obese people as infected individuals who made bad choices and have a personal responsibility to fix themselves. And posits that they can all do it, if they really try!

Berlant also says something about eating that I think is cool. She talks about the way that in our weird Neoliberal America, we're always involved in projects of self-improvement. Projects like "do well in school" or "improve my conversation skills" or "figure out how to have longer, better orgasms". She says that the act of eating something delicious- tasting, swallowing, ingesting- is a little break from these projects. This doesn't mean that when I eat Doritos in spite of my fear of being judged by the Bay Area Buddies I'm practicing some awesome form of resistance. It just means I'm taking a little rest from thinking about making myself better to eat chips. Maybe in Milwaukee.

6 comments:

  1. That's an interesting theory. I miss thinking about stuff like that. Thanks to your blog, I'm thinking about that theory right now. And, I'm about to buy a doughnut. Wednesday morning is our doughnut morning. It's a treat tradition.

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  2. Doughnut morning! That was Sunday for a while during high school and I think Friday in kindergarten when we lived here and my aunt would take me to school. The best!

    Yeah, theory like this is hella fun. Not as fun as eating doughnuts with your family, but still a good time.

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  3. Wait, I can't buy beer in groceries in my state! That's crap!

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  4. I need to take fewer breaks and focus more on the self improvement side of life. And I ate chips tonight. I'm blaming it on the vacation.

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  5. Our trip to Chicago is all about the meals. Green Zebra, Frontera, Bin 36. We will try to improve ourselves in between, with some educational trips to museums.

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  6. Laverne and Shirley worked in a Milwaukee brewery.

    Beer = good.

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