Sabrina Salerno, the feminist

People who lived in the 1980s in Europe probably remember Sabrina Salerno, who was a prominent pop singer with the breakthrough hit 'Boys' in 1987. The music video for that song was allegedly banned on MTV because of the very famous nipple slip in the video clip that was originally made as a segment for an Italian TV show. She was criticized by feminists as being a sex object, using sex and provocative appearances to further her singing career and not offering much else to the world of music. She was compared with other "sexy" female pop singers of the time, including but not limited to Samantha Fox, who, like Sabrina, had been a well-known topless model.

After two successful studio albums of the Italo disco genre, it seemed that Sabrina had disappeared. She did continue her singing and acting career in Italy, though, and frequently gives interviews. She also appeared on the music video for a folk cover of 'Boys' by the Finnish singer Sansa in 2011.

We didn't hear much about feminism in the 1980s. We didn't care much about what Sabrina or any other pop star actually said in interviews. Everybody knew she had breasts and that her style was not especially... modest. Some had even seen her music videos (I hadn't, as we only had two TV channels at the time). She seemed to have gigs in Finland, my home country, every year.

On the surface level, for many, she seemed like the worst example of a sexy pop star chained by her producers and managers to perform suggestive songs about sex. For me, the Italo disco beats in Sabrina's hits such as 'My Chico' convinced me that there is actually some "adult music" (as in not children's music) that is worth listening to and later this evolved fascination about electronic music in general and techno music specifically.

But who was (or is) Sabrina and what did she actually say?

Thanks to the Internet and YouTube, there's a lot of material to work with. Having studied at an international school, she had no trouble giving comments in English or appearing at music and talk shows around the world. It is actually striking to see this 19-year-old woman casually discussing her music and views, exhibiting total self-confidence, challenging the interviewer, questioning the interviewer's questions.

In this 1988 interview with MTV, she says she admires Madonna due to her strong personality and the control she has over her career. She stresses that she does not try to be sexy - she tries to be Sabrina, it is up to others to decide whether they think she's sexy or not.

In another interview with Super Channel, Sabrina says "I'm not an object, I'm a subject". She asks why athletes such as football players are respected and understood but as a pop singer she has to explain why she trains dancing and singing and has to take care of her body.

In 1989 she had an interview with the Swedish show Bullen, in which she says she has never fallen in love and discusses how she cares too much about her career to settle down and start a family. She also says having been abandoned by her parents and living alone since the age of 16, she has grown independent and worked hard to prove herself.

In other interviews she has discussed the conservative Italian family-centered society and its expectations for young women. She says her "sexy" appearance is body positivity - she says she feels she is beautiful and has the right to show it and is perplexed why anybody questions her right to do it.

On her second studio album, 'Super Sabrina', she collaborated with the producer trio Stock-Aitken-Waterman ald also with the disco legend Giorgio Moroder. She co-wrote the hit 'My Chico' and shared that she aimed to perform more music written by herself. She also wanted to evolve and not continue the same disco/pop career as before, which led to conflicts with her producers and mangers.

I understand that the "sexy" image (expectation) of female pop singers can be problematic. However, Madonna, among others, has used the image while building her career, and is nowadays seen as, in many ways, an exemplary strong and independent woman, even as an "almost sacred feminist icon".

While Madonna and Samantha Fox seemed sophisticated and their videos polished, Sabrina seemed more provocative and uninhibited, openly asking why she should hide what she is or thinks.
She asked for respect for her rights and work as a singer and as a woman and as a teenager questioned the subjugated role of women in the society. She said she wanted to do good and change the society by being herself. And she said all this before even turning 21.

Sabrina's feminism (if you want to call it that, and she did not use the word) isn't always what you would expect from something described as feminism. Maybe she doesn't look like a feminist. But arent't the themes what feminism is about, especially as seen through the progressive lense of the 2010s society? Or, at least, shouldn't her career and comments be at least considered as expressions of feminist ideals, to some extent, just like feminists from so many different backgrounds can have completely valid ideas and approaches?

Did you remember what Sabrina said?

What would a Warplanes film be like?

I saw a poster for the film Planes, part of the popular Cars franchise. I noticed that some of the characters are military jets (Super Hornets). I started to wonder what a film called Warplanes (that would happen in the same universe) would be like. Warplanes would follow a miscellaneous cast of American warplanes at a major air force base. There would be the young and fast F-22 planes that everyone admires and the F-35s who are in their teens, trying to prove themselves. Looking upon them are the older F-15s and F-16s, many of them combat veterans. Their "cousins", Ray-Ban-wearing F/A-18s, who sometimes come to visit for joint dissimilar air combat training, have traveled around the world, bombed exotic places, and starred in famous films. (Nobody remembers the F-14s any more.) Overseeing these "kids" are of course older, bigger planes: the clumsy but gentle transport C-5 and the little bit more agile C-17. Their friends include the radar plane E-3 and the best friend forever KC-135 and its bigger brother KC-10. (Obviously all of these would have cute names in the actual film.) Many older planes would actually be sad and bored. Once lauded as technological marvels, carrying expensive and advanced nuclear weapons, are now mostly used for training purposes or sitting in the desert, some having had their wings chopped off due to the START treaty. The B-52 and B-1 especially would still like to see some action, to prove that there still is a reason for them to exist. There's a generational gap between them and the F-22s and F-35s, even though they are supposed to work together. But one day, a plane they have heard of but never seen, the shadowy but respected E-4 Nightwatch, delivers a message from the trusty and wise VC-25 Air Force One which has sadly been shot down: they have a new mission, and they have to work together to complete it! There's no time for anyone to sit in the desert any more! The F-22s are excited to be moved to forward-operating bases assisted by their friends, KC-135s. Striking from multiple directions and with their Super Hornet buddies and allied Eurofighters, they target the bad guys' air defences to pave the way for the nuclear-armed B-52 bombers, escorted by the enthusiastic F-35s and F-16s. The Falcons and Raptors notice the tears in the corners of the old Stratofortresses' cockpit windows - the old guys are really touched by finally getting into action. They still know their tricks! They launch their nuclear-tipped ALCMs toward enemy targets, knowing they have fulfilled their duty, perhaps even fate. Some of them even drop old-fashioned B61 gravity bombs toward Russian cities and other civilian targets. They are heroes! One B-52, just before being shot down, is even informed of having been awarded a medal for outstanding combat service! In the sequel, the surviving Warplanes head back home, after saving the world from the bad guys who wanted to destroy their freedom and independence. Since all KC-135s were destroyed in air or on the ground, not all make it back - some have to ditch in the sea, some even meeting their allied Warships and brand new P-8 maritime reconnaissance planes. But the ones who make it back see that the enemy counterattack has destroyed almost the whole United States, including their own home air force base. Landing at civilian airports and facing innocent humans demanding answers for why they caused the country to turn into apocalyptic wasteland, they face completely new problems. People want to strip them of their radiation-hardened parts to build shelters, repair hospitals and build radios to coordinate rescue operations. Will our friends survive? Is this the end for the friendly machines designed as deliverers of mass destruction? (There are no further sequels.)

Vulcans in Star Trek: Jewish or secretly gay?

It is commonly thought (and partially revealed by scriptwriters) that Vulcans are based on ugly stereotypes of Jewish culture (intelligent, controlling, scheming, with secret bloody rituals). Leonard Nimoy also developed the Vulcan greeting based on a Jewish blessing he witnessed at a synagogue. Likewise, Klingons were modeled after stereotypes about feudal Japan (with Viking influences), Romulans after Ancient Rome etc. But wouldn't it be more or at least substantially allegorical to think of Vulcans as closeted homosexuals?

In TOS, Vulcans are depicted as competent, rational, a bit weird and funny-looking, reserved, and having lots of secrets. Literally. In classic episodes "Balance of Terror" and "Amok Time", it is revealed that the Vulcans actually maintain a careful facade to conceal their true identity. They are actually emotional, fierce, even violent people who hide behind ancient rituals and purity pledges (Kolinahr) to appear relatively normal to others.

In "Amok Time" and TNG's "Sarek", it is revealed that being a member of the Vulcan society imposes a heavy toll: finding a mate is not through love but an arranged child marriage confirmed by a ritual, failure to find a mate results in mental illness and even death, as does continued suppression of emotions without release. In "Sarek", this is made explicit by Sarek's breakdown after decades of harboring forbidden emotions that he forcefully releases to Picard via mind meld. In "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", Saavik offers herself to Spock as a mate to save his life.

Obviously, in "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", we meet a Vulcan who does not believe in Surak's restricting ideals. He is openly emotional which finally betrays him. Spock keeps his brother's existence secret even to his closest friends due to embarrassment - Sybok is out of the closet, while Spock is confined to it and desperately committed to staying there, as indoctrinated in his childhood by his powerful father.

We also know that Spock is also half Vulcan. This creates an identity crisis that he tries to fix by committing to a reparatory therapy known as Kolinahr ("Star Trek: The Motion Picture"). But as he is to make the final purity pledge, he realizes that this path is not entirely correct - there is something in the universe that calls upon him and wants to be intimate with him (which happens later in the film by mind meld).

I did a bit of Google research and while there are tons of references and allegories to sexuality in Star Trek, I did not actually easily find mentions of Vulcan life as an allegory of closeted lgbti+ people. One of the reasons for Star Trek's success is that the aliens and future concepts we encounter are relatable because they are based on human concepts. Even when not made explicit, the patterns are familiar, therefore I am surprised that I haven't encountered this connection before. Not saying it is any more correct than the Jewish connection that the scriptwriters have acknowledged, but it is also not surprising if these connections seem fitting.

What do you think?

Metamathematics and the associated shame

I was 35 when I found metamathematics. 

It's something I'd been secretly interested in all my life but I didn't have a word for it. After going to bed, in darkness, I would take out my mobile phone, browse Wikipedia or Encyclopedia of Mathematics and read about hyperbolic geometry, minimal universal Turing machines, cellular automata, Entscheidungsproblem and other things. I thought I was the only one. There was no one in my family I could talk to about it. Only later, at a liberal American university, far away from home, I realized that metamathematics is nothing to be ashamed of, and you can do it just for fun, either alone or with somebody you trust. There are even online groups and fun events you can go with others who share the same interest. 

I also believe that metamathematics is only natural in the wider development of mathematics and should be recognized as foundational instead of hushed away as insignificant fringe research area. Also, you don't have to read everything that has been written about it or to know everybody in the scene, you can get intimate with the Busy Beaver game within the confines of your home. 

It's also important and encouraging that while Gauss was hesitant to come out with his blasphemous ideas with hyperbolic geometry, others like Hilbert, Church, and Turing proudly stepped into spotlight. I'm not into hero worship but these pioneers - with sometimes tragic lives - are revered for a reason.

(This is my first new blog post in four years!)