CULTURE SHOCK! At the movies!

Last night wax and I saw Music and Lyrics (a Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore romcom about a former pop star) instead of 300 because our immersion in Panic! At The Disco has put us in the mood for fluffy things.

Okay, so, I had a CULTURE SHOCK moment twice when a joke consisted of Hugh Grant picking out the Jeopardy theme on the piano while he waits for Drew to come up with something, and - you know, it wasn't the greatest joke in the history of ever, but it was well-timed and quite good in context, and I laughed out loud and was the only one in the theatre laughing. I was like, "Wow, am I that lame all of a sudden? - Oh wait," because they don't know Jeopardy in Finland. How were the translators going to handle that (if they could)?

Also, a couple of months ago I had to explain "Trix are for kids" to wax. It's not like I'm not used to cultural differences, obviously, but you can demonstrably never become completely used to it. Socialisation wouldn't be very effective without its ability to convince us of our culture's naturalness and inevitability.

Queerness in Georgette Heyer

Wow.  The twincesty Heyer mystery has now added to its attractions by making the twins' sister a butch lesbian, and their brother, if not gay, really, really metro. o.O

It's queer in a different way from The Masqueraders, which struck me very strongly because of all its genderbending when I reread it recently. (That novel contains two romances, and the protagonists are a brother and sister who both crossdress and weasel into the fashionable London society of the 18th century.)

The lesbians are possibly a little offensive, but then, this was written in the 40s. ( For example. )