I was flipping through the new Sportsnet magazine and saw that picture and a brief description and was like OH MY GOD THAT’S AWESOME! 😀 Even more awesome cuz he’s like “THIS IS AWESOME!” and he’s not defensive or nething at all 😀
This is Antonio Garay, nose tackle for the San Diego Chargers.
And yes, that is actually his car.
😀
Coolest. Football player. EVER.
What would be more awesome, of course, is a world where this is awesome cuz Hello Kitty is awesome, but not awesome cuz it’s surprising, laudable, or rare. And also a world where the societal assumptions related to his gender, and race, and other intersectional things that are behind those reactions, don’t exist. But hopefully this is an (awesome) step towards that level of awesomeness in our society 😀
(Awesome.)
Edit: Being lazy, I keep forgetting about putting up my contributor bio. xD It’s up now! 😀
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
Hershele Ostropoler
Cheradenine
jlandrith
kaija24
2020
noahbrand
Cliff Pervocracy
ozymandias
Shora
sirgabe
figleaf
John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
He’s 6’4″ 320lbs and makes $640,000/yr violently knocking other large men to the ground. That’s why he can drive a Hello Kitty smart ForTwo.
I want to see the place kicker or the receivers coach driving around in one – then I’ll be impressed.
“What would be more awesome, of course, is a world where this is awesome cuz Hello Kitty is awesome”
Except that Hello Kitty is actually a pretty horrible thing, considering she displays the perfect girl because she has no fucking mouth – meaning she can’t talk, something that women do all to often (I guess).
Eh. I’m more of a Kero Keroppi fan. But this is sweeeet.
“I want to see the place kicker or the receivers coach driving around in one – then I’ll be impressed.”
Still. You can’t really expect them to start… so that’s still “real man wear pink” 😉
Except that I hate Hello Kitty, this is freaking awesome.
“Except that Hello Kitty is actually a pretty horrible thing, considering she displays the perfect girl because she has no fucking mouth…”
She looks like a cat to me, not a girl. And you generally can’t see a cat’s mouth from the front of the head. Is Keroppi likewise the perfect girl? Because that thing has quite a mouth on it.
I got a few Hello Kitty things. Not sure I’d get a Smart, but a HK car would be cool if I actually drove.
I have a Hello Kitty PJ, a plushie, an account in Hello Kitty Online, a Kinder surprise toy, sneakers (from ebay, since only sold in Japan) and a single bed sheet+comforter set (and I’m sitting on my HK pillow right now).
I love that picture. It’s ironic and wholesome at the same time. Of course he can drive a shoebox with Haroo Kiti on it because of his size and success but that just tells me he’s a found a really good use for his size and success.
Actually, the real pioneer is Rosey Grier. He was needlepointing back in the 70s.
@monkey: not to mention Lynn Swann studying ballet and other forms of dance from childhood through most of his career (to the point of appearing on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood to take Mr. Rogers to a ballet class)…
When i was a little kid I had a little Hello Kitty travel bag that I kept stuff in whenever my family visited relatives out of state. Traveling was pretty stressful, so it was a nice thing to have.
Cluisanna,
A number of Sanrio characters, of both sexes, are drawn that way. I don’t think there’s any insidious meaning to it.
“Except that Hello Kitty is actually a pretty horrible thing, considering she displays the perfect girl because she has no fucking mouth ..”
That part is weird Cluissanna, but for me Hello Kitty is at least creepy if not horrible, pace John Markley. All that saccharine cute stuff out of Japan is weird. I know it’s a reaction maybe to their very severe esthetic in general, but it goes way over the top for my taste.
I’ve never understood the either extreme love or extreme hate inspired by Hello Kitty; I had a HK pencil case and address book when I was little, in the 70s (which demonstrates the character’s staying power!), but mostly because they were . . . around, if that makes sense, not because I was a huge fan.
However, *that* gentleman in *that* car is definitely a made-of-win combo!
“I’ve never understood the either extreme love or extreme hate inspired by Hello Kitty; I had a HK pencil case and address book when I was little, in the 70s (which demonstrates the character’s staying power!), but mostly because they were . . . around, if that makes sense, not because I was a huge fan.”
Most huge fans of anything are adult and in means enough to buy the stuff through work, not spoiled children. So kids (mostly FAAB people) who got Hello Kitty items as a kid might have chosen Hello Kitty over something else, possibly non-descript, does not mean they were fans.
In Japan (and increasingly elsewhere), adult women (including trans women like yours truly) buy Hello Kitty stuff, few men dare. However, if we’re speaking HKO players, there are a few boys and men there (and at least a couple trans women – given I met one in beta).
Whether or not one believes that Hello Kitty is a good or bad thing, it’s still something that is heavily gendered female in our society and it’s still awesome that the guy is driving a Hello Kitty car 😀
In the same way, if Kim Ng is hired as GM of the Angels, it’ll still be awesome to have a woman (and a woman of colour!) as a general manager in North American pro sports, regardless of if you care about or like baseball :3
Love it. Love the shade, love the decor, love the car.
@Ami, it will only be awesome if she does well. Art Shell was the first black football coach, but it doesn’t matter because he was an awful coach and got fired. Twice. Tony Dungy was the first black coach to win a superbowl.
Similarly, Tom Flores was the first hispanic head coach in the NFL and he’s worth celebrating because he won a couple of the big games.
It will be awesome just that the barrier is broken 🙂 If she does well it’ll be DOUBLE awesome! 😀 But it’s not fair to say it’ll only be awesome if she does well xD I would WANT her to do well, but the fact that it happens is alrdy v cool 😀
In an ideal world, yeah, hiring a woman for GM isn’t a big deal. Just like Garay driving a Hello Kitty car wouldn’t be awesome just b/c it’s breaking gender norms, but in this world, I think it’s pretty damn cool 😀
Things don’t have to be either awesome or not. They can be awesome at base, and then EVEN MORE AWESOME later! 😀 And then they can be SUPER awesome, and later TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CHIP STRAWBERRY SWIRL AMAZING awesome! 😀 If she succeeds, it will be an extra layer of awesome 🙂
@superglucose: Art Shell MkI:
1989: (took over with a 1-3 record) 7-5, 3rd place in division
1990: 12-4, won division, 1-1 in playoffs
1991: 9-7, 3rd in division, 0-1 in playoffs
1992: 7-9, 4th in division
1993: 10-6, 2nd in division, 1-1 in playoffs
1994: 9-7, 3rd in division
Not exactly an awful record there. Even with 2-14 in MkII, he’s still over .500. One can definitely make the point that head coach for the Raiders hasn’t generally been that important due to Al Davis being a more influential/meddlesome owner than most, but at the same time, apart from a spell under Jon Gruden (which was also, perhaps not coincidentally, a time of reduced Davis influence, as evidenced by a shift from the vertical passing game to a Walsh-style west coast offense), Shell is the most recent Raiders head coach to have a sustained winning record. I’m not sure that awful is the proper word in this context.
@Levi Ramsey: I had forgotten about Lynn Swann! I had even seen that episode of Mr. Rogers!
I just looked up Lynn Swann and apparently he’s a Republican. Oh well.
“What would be more awesome, of course, is a world where this is awesome cuz Hello Kitty is awesome, but not awesome cuz it’s surprising, laudable, or rare.”
– You’re the one who is deciding why it is awesome. You can live in that world -right now- if you want.
Orphan: Oh, why didn’t we think of this before? If gender egalitarians just pretend sexist gender roles don’t exist, they will magically stop existing. It’s not like socially constructed things can still be real or anything!
“In the same way, if Kim Ng is hired as GM of the Angels, it’ll still be awesome to have a woman (and a woman of colour!) as a general manager in North American pro sports, regardless of if you care about or like baseball :3”
Just the name itslef would be a game-changer. It’s not the easiest to pronounce and it screams “We belong here too.” Careful on the owman part though, that’s no guarantee of anything – remember that woman who owned some team back in the Midwest who got run out because of the horrible racist things she let slip?
“Whether or not one believes that Hello Kitty is a good or bad thing, it’s still something that is heavily gendered female in our society …”
I must be horribly isolated or behind the times or something because it surprises me that this somehow not obvious.
Careful on the owman part though, that’s no guarantee of anything – remember that woman who owned some team back in the Midwest who got run out because of the horrible racist things she let slip?
Cincinnati Reds I believe o: And I didn’t say she’d be a better GM BECAUSE she’s a woman, I said it’s awesome because it’d be groundbreaking 🙂 And a WoC no less :3
Unfortunately, as Ozy pointed out to me before, this means I won’t be the first Asian female GM xD However, I can still be the first Asian female GM who wins a championship! 😀
That picture is both funny and awesome at the same time.
As for the damage guys like him can do, this episode of Sports Science puts Ravens middle linebacker Ray Lewis and a cop with a battering ram against a door to see who wins in terms of force produced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBVCyXdPevY
I liked it. Except I must point out that science rules. Science!
@Clarence:
I hate to say it, but that crystallizes what I find troubling about this article. As some people pointed out, this guy’s a big guy who can be secure in his masculinity because he is a big guy who can hurt people. But… football players often suffer from the same concussions that hockey players do, and a lot of it is because of guys like him. I’m not sure how cool that is.
(Also, I think I’m just projecting here, but I’ve known a few alpha males that are comfortable with girls’ things and combatting sexist who are outright jerks when it comes to other guys.)
Please don’t be offended, Ami!
Monkey:
There is a tremendous difference between a legal hit between people who are padded while playing a sport and downright fighting as seen in hockey.
As far as American football and concussions go I reached a conclusion last year that if they would ban helmet to helmet contact at practice that would go a long way towards reducing any long term risks. But you are right – 1000 pounds of force is still 1000 pounds of force when it hits you. I don’t want to see “Flag ” football but I’ve fully supported most of the safety measures that have been introduced to the game over the years. It’s a game, not a war, and while it’s acceptable for there to be some risk, serious injuries should not be inevitable or even very likely.
Rugby (pretty much the European equivalent to American football) has no protective equipment (as far as I know, they don’t even wear knee caps and I’d have noticed a helmet or other pads if they wore any).
They also have contact on the field (it certainly isn’t flag), but might be less “rawwr, let’s destroy the enemy, he’s padded anyway” attitude.
Rugby has it’s own share of issues, like damage to the ears. Bruce Arthur,of the National Post, compared Football and Rugby with Boxing and UFC, in that UFC and Rugby seem way more brutal, and people wear less equipment, but it’s safer in terms of head injuries than Football and Boxing despite all the protections we see (part of it is that concussions are caused by the brain slamming into the skull and so even padded gloves or helmet won’t necessarily stop that). There are also different kinds of injuries. There are more dislocated and broken stuff in UFC, but Boxing is almost all about head contact and impact, and a lot of football is head contact… it’s not a contact sport, it’s a collision sport, and the equipment can add to the damage factor because the equipment is hard and so impacting against it can be more powerful, plus I’ve heard analysis that the equipment make people feel more invincible and therefore more reckless in hitting others, because the blow that THEY feel dishing out a hit is mitigated by the equipment.
Head on head contact, like Clarence says, is for sure a huge issue that causes concussions, and to it’s credit, the NFL does seem to be trying to, at least to some degree, remove it. And the NFL has changed the rules over time to remove types of hits they don’t like, which is something the NHL could learn from. The NHL tends to handwring a lot that it’s impossible to prevent anything, and get paralysis by analysis, and end up not doing what’s necessary, which is punishing the players to a degree that it becomes a really bad idea for them to hit people in the head,or fight.
Ozymandias:
I said that the author could live in that world. The issue in the post is purely one of personal perspective.
And to a significant extent, yes, posts like this perpetuate strict gendering, rather than abolish it; for a simple reason why, which do you think works better to abolish gender roles, the guy driving around the Hello Kitty car because Hello Kitty is cool, or the guy driving around the Hello Kitty car because gender rules suck, man?
Yeah, it feels great to try to cast people on your side, but by doing so, you explicitly cast him -outside- the side of the people who it is most important to convince of something. You’re poisoning the well. This guy does more for gender rights when he’s not doing anything for gender rights, because he’s treating the rules as irrelevant, rather than crusading against them. This works against governments, and it works against societal conventions as well. Crusades and protests merely engender resistance; subversion is more effective, which is to say, effective at all.
This guy does more for gender rights when he’s not doing anything for gender rights, because he’s treating the rules as irrelevant, rather than crusading against them.
Yus, and that’s why I think it’s awesome. xD
I’m having trouble parsing what your objection is. Is this similar to the race-blind argument?
Ami – That objection was for Ozymandias. My original post, that it -CAN- just be awesome that he likes something awesome, was intended for you.
And there are philosophic concepts in common, but no, it’s not, not for that post at least. Racial issues have different causes; subversion is most useful in dealing with objectionable rules, and there aren’t any rules to subvert in racism.
For an objection which would be similar to the race-blind argument, you’re defining him as much by gender as anybody else. Philosophically, this is bad. Your support for him hinges on his behaving outside gender norms, you like him precisely because he breaks them; how is this ethically different from liking somebody only because they adhere to gender norms? Just because you’re telling people to behave outside the norm set doesn’t mean you aren’t telling people how to behave.
But I’m not telling him to behave outside the norm set
I haven’t told anybody that they must drive Hello Kitty cars. xD Nor have I objected to anybody who doesn’t, or said “I HATE FOOTBALL PLAYERS WHO DRIVE SPORTS CARS” or nething XD
And yus,that objection you just had is what I was wondering about re: the race blind argument. :3
On the rugby comparison, it should also be noted that more and more rugby players are opting for scrum caps, which bear a striking similarity to the old-school leather helmets on the gridiron.
(and rugby [union] is only the European equivalent to gridiron in a few countries in Europe (the ones that constitute Great Britain, Ireland, and the surrounding isles, France, and Italy, mainly); gridiron (judging from membership in the governing body, number of clubs, etc.) is bigger than rugby in Germany, Austria, and Serbia (to name three; of course, in all of them, both oval-ball football codes are massively behind association football).
@Ami Angelwings: I hope you weren’t offended by my comments!
I should explain that when I was in college I encountered a lot of alpha males who were very secure in their sexuality, very cognizant of their privilege, and yet were very angry and confrontational when it came to telling other males about how they were priviliged, etc. So maybe I’m reading too much into it.
(Also, I’ve never liked the ____._____.EVER! construction, so maybe that’s it)
Sorry!
@monkey I’m not offended by your comment at all 🙂
The guy is free to spend his money how he wants but I have to say that that car is not pretty by any means. I’ll say it like I told me friends who bought herself a Prius a few weeks ago, with a car that looks like that science must be on the side of that car (as in fuel economy, etc…).
Ami Angelwings –
You are. As much as a father who ignores his son when he watches girly shows but lavishes attention on him when he’s engaged in “manly” activities is telling his son how to behave.
The crucible of gender roles is not negative reinforcement, even though it gets far more attention, it’s positive reinforcement.
@Ami Angelwings: BTW, I read your blog, very cool!
TY! 😀
“For an objection which would be similar to the race-blind argument, you’re defining him as much by gender as anybody else. Philosophically, this is bad. Your support for him hinges on his behaving outside gender norms, you like him precisely because he breaks them; how is this ethically different from liking somebody only because they adhere to gender norms? Just because you’re telling people to behave outside the norm set doesn’t mean you aren’t telling people how to behave.”
This is one of the criticism leveled at trans women (and only trans women) about looking conventionally feminine post-transition. Something about how they reify gender more than everyone else. And how they should have been feminine men instead, to challenge gender norms.
It’s criticism that completely misses the point, and was shot down thousands of time by trans women as the stupid argument it is. But it still keeps being made, all the time, because to non-trans people, it’s “common sense” that the only thing you can identify as is a role or a set of behavior coded into recognizeable expression (ie feminine and masculine). Which is pretty much the definition of “not getting” trans people.
Schala –
I don’t believe you finished reading the paragraph you quoted. To be specific, I believe you stopped after ten words.
Because what I wrote is in fact the counterargument to that criticism. In terms of trans people, this would be directed at people complaining about trans people adhering to gender roles; they’re telling trans people how they should behave.
Orphan I was quite aware of that, and I read all walls of text, or don’t reply to those walls of text.
I don’t think you quite understand, Orphan. If the gender egalitarians ignore gender, there will still be the social pressure from all the sexists to obey gender roles. If the gender egalitarians are like “yay, breaking down social norms!” it just counteracts the social pressure from the sexists to obey gender roles and so actually leads to a situation in which people are more free.
Also, if you think talking about gender reinforces gender, um, why are you on this site?
Ozymandias –
Social pressures don’t “balance out.” In the simplest terms, one person thinking you’re awesome and another thinking you’re horrible doesn’t zero out. More broadly, society is amorphous; extending the metaphor, all that opposing pressure can achieve is to create schisms.
And yes, certain ways of talking about gender reinforce it. That is nothing novel to this blog.
I think you and Ozy aren’t taking about the same thing. xD Zie is not talking about putting pressure the OTHER way. The awesomeness of the Hello Kitty car is b/c it’s an example of what you said before,
This guy does more for gender rights when he’s not doing anything for gender rights, because he’s treating the rules as irrelevant, rather than crusading against them.
That is what is awesome 😀
We aren’t saying “in order to counter that women are to like hello kitty, MEN MUST LIKE HELLO KITTY NOW” xD
Eh… Rainbow Dash would have been twenty percent cooler.
Yet another contributor to one man’s life in Hello Kitty Hell.