Fanon, Alienation and Sexual Harassment

* Eventually I’m gonna finish this post. It just ain’t gonna happen until I get a chance to return to Fanon in a more serious way. Which means the second part of this post, arguably the most important part is extremely underdeveloped. But I’m still posting it to clean house behind the scenes and get some writing drafts onto the blog.

Over the past few months I’ve had some good conversations with R, E and maza de adelita about street harassment. We were sharing war stories of what we’ve experienced and the conversations have really reminded me of how often and, frequently, how violent street harassment of female-bodied people can be. It also reminded me of the contours and relationship of gender, patriarchy and alienation which come out in harassment. Here’s some of the war stories I shared with them, and a couple others.

Alienation in “Blue Valentine”

**Spoiler Alert**

I watched Blue Valentine last night. It’s really a heart-breaking story and it speaks volumes to the alienation and pressures that plague all relationships under capitalism. The film follows this couple, Cindy and Dean, simultaneously showing both the very beginning of their relationship when they fall in love and the very end of their relationship as they are falling out of love. What I like about it is that it doesn’t get caught up in details of why they fall out of love or even how. The film focuses solely on these two moments and the simultaneous beauty and pain of both.