Do you feel uncomfortable with the way carnivores look at you?

[RandomKoolzip]

Let's face it: the only thing keeping the average meat-eater from slitting your throat and bathing himself (invariably it's a guy, right?) in your offal as he gads about stuffing your pancreas in his gaping maw and bellowing "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?! WOOF WOOF!!" is society's rigid anti-murder laws. Without those, who knows what might happen!

Those familiar with feminist and post-structuralist discourse and its applications in the cultural studies arena will recognize the concept of the "male gaze." In simple terms, since the point of view of most films and television shows is male-centered, the audience unconciously identifies with the male and thus must always see the female as an object rather than as a human.

In my experience, there is also the "meat-eater's gaze." Since the majority of movie-goers are carnivorous (lord have mercy on their souls), and almost without exception, so are the directors of said movies, what we see when we look at films is the gaze of the meat-eater. We see how the meat-eater shapes, judges, and interprets the events around him. What can he murder for food? Is there meat in the foreground on which he can chew? Is his love interest merely a sex object, or is she also a potentially tasty entree best served lukewarm over a bed of risotto and battered shallots?

In studying culture, we can use the typical movie set outdoors as a study in binary oppositions: the male (predator), superior to the objectified female (prey), stakes out his territory, inevitably relegating the vegetation in the background to marginal status, while the living, breathing animals (i.e. "the meat of the matter") parade about in their taste-tempting splandor. Thus, trees and plants are inferior, not even worthy of objectification, and therefore evil.

I think I'm finally understanding why I don't like TGIFriday's.

[taterguy]

1. yes

[RandomKoolzip]

9. You're a tater, so....good luck!

Have fun avoiding the incisors of your fellow men! :hi:

[taterguy]

21. Sweet dreams to you too

I'm sleeping with one eye open from now on

[jpgray]

2. Pursuant to your hypothesis

I'm going to try camel for the first time.

[RandomKoolzip]

6. Try National Health first.

Less pretentious, IMO, and their drummer was more nuanced.

[jpgray]

7. But Snow Goose foie gras is so delicious.

[redqueen]

3. No.

Cause I'm at the top of the food chain, baby!

Suck it!

[redqueen]

4. Get it? "Suck it"?

See what I did there?

[RandomKoolzip]

5. Without diagrams, I'm lost.

[Midlodemocrat]

8. Only the ones that are larger than me.

[XNASA]

10. I've always thought it was because I have great legs.

Now I'm not so sure if it's because I have delicious looking legs. :scared:

[RandomKoolzip]

14. If you're a vegetarian, you'll automatically have nice legs.

Oh, and your breath will smell like the dew on a lily-of-the-valley!

So, in other words: look out, bro.

[redqueen]

16. Is it true what they say about the farts, though?

[RandomKoolzip]

18. Even better!

Your farts will cure several types of cancer! And cauterize paper cuts!

[DainBramaged]

11. If you are a carnivores, why would you be uncomfortable?

[RandomKoolzip]

13. It's dog eat dog, baby.

Eat or be eaten: that's my motto.

[jobycom]

12. Standing on the platform, wondering whether the train has already passed me by...

[RandomKoolzip]

15. Nope, but the non-sequitir train seems to be right on time.

[asthmaticeog]

17. Your conclusions arise from a flawed methodology.

Specifically, there's no social class component to the analysis. Since class is my political kink, I must assume you to be unenlightened and counterrevolutionary. Sorry Koolzip, I love you to bits, but if you keep this shit up you won't survive the first purge.

[RandomKoolzip]

19. Class, shmass.

Let's eat!

[jpgray]

20. You should read this great study on the dynamics of interbeing and monological imperatives

[RandomKoolzip]

22. "Jane" is code for "reification."

So says Michael "Cockhammer" Foucault.

[Shakespeare]

23. It's the whole looking at me like I'm a big roast chicken that gets old.

Oh, wait--saw too many Looney Tunes cartoons as a kid....