Rebecca Bodenheimer

@rmbodenheimer

Freelance writer & cultural critic with a PhD in ethnomusicology Host of The Clave Chronicles, a Cuban music podcast she/her, bilingüe, fat, 🏳️‍🌈 , Oaktown Hire me: rmbodenheimer@gmail.com

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Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· 7d

Hair is growing out and getting a lot of comments saying they like my hair better like this than longer… What do you think?

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· 7d

This wonderful graf by @angelicabastien.bsky.social makes, IMO, an implied gesture to the backlash to MeToo. In The Odyssey, Nolan is only interested in men's experience of being *accused* of sexual violence rather than the actual sexual violence women experience. www.vulture.com/article/circ...

What Nolan adapts, he flattens. What he can’t, he scrubs clean from the text. (He cuts Circe’s sexual relationship with Odysseus entirely. That Circe is a goddess as well as a witch is never made explicit either.) Without the nuances of Morton’s performance, the Circe scene as written by Nolan is rooted in men’s questionable fear of being accused of violence against women rather than the tragedy of how women navigate that very real threat to our lives. Consider how Emily Wilson’s powerful translation of Homer’s poem deliberately brings to the surface of the story that the women house-slaves on Ithaca are raped by Penelope’s suitors, obliterating any romanticized portrayal of these women as maids who willingly take these men into their beds. In Nolan’s rendition, the threat of sexual violence never quite materializes for Penelope and her slaves, nor for any woman in the story. There is a way to address sexual violence and loss of power without having a cold, traumatizing scene directly demonstrating it. And in eliding that reality of war entirely, Nolan reconstitutes Odysseus’s men as the greatest victims of violence.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· 9d

Whoa, shots fired at JCO lol

I dig that choice — it’s bold — yet still think he flubs it by not replacing the magical powers of Charlize Theron’s Calypso and Zendaya’s Athena with, say, a personality. What a waste of two terrific actors. It’s no wonder Oates stuck up for him. Her novel “Blonde” also stripped the agency from love goddess Marilyn Monroe and its own 2022 movie adaptation launched a thousand hot takes.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Jun 12

YESSS

“No,” is the shortest sentence in the English language and as propulsive and powerful as that fact implies. It is a weapon that these men do not want women to have, which is why the spectre they always invoke is so relentlessly feminine; maternal and dominant, the figure that so many men can most relate to as the first woman who did them wrong because she had power.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Jun 8

THIS

Why are first-year writing and reading-intensive general-education courses still the most adjunctified, lowest-paid, highest-load corner of the university, at the precise moment when their work has become the most important work the institution does?

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Jun 8

Neuroscience is now catching up with all the anecdotal evidence displaying the incredibly damaging effects of smart phones and genAI on students' ability to read

So when a student tells me they “kept losing track” of a 20-page article, I have to acknowledge that they may be describing a measurable neurological condition. The neural pathways that support sustained attention are built by use, and they atrophy without it. Your body is a use-it-or-lose-it system, and the brain is no exception.

Eighty-three percent of LLM users could not quote a single line from essays they had written minutes earlier. When the LLM group was forced to write without AI in a follow-up session, their brain activity did not bounce back to baseline; the researchers coined the term “cognitive debt” for the lingering deficit.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· May 20

visual image of the ties of GAESA to the Cuban military and Raul Castro, and the way it controls the Cuban economy

Images of the sectors GAESA controls: hotels, tourist transportation, currency exchange, foreign trade, supermarkets, gas stations

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· May 6

Relevant excerpts from a recent essay I wrote open.substack.com/pub/rebeccab...

I’ve been thinking a lot about the way the return of “heroin chic” dovetails with the rising authoritarianism under Trump, and the ways his administration has declared open war on any and all marginalized communities. We see it in so many ways, like the return of the “r-word” in both public discourse by right-wing figures and in film (Eddington and One Battle After Another), as well as the blatant racism, xenophobia, and transphobia displayed by MAGA and their elected politicians. This extends to the ways Trump’s cabinet and followers speak about people in larger bodies.

The “obesity epidemic” looms large in RFK, Jr.’s MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) agenda and he has taken aim at ultra-processed foods and their supposed role in making America fatter. Long an enemy of pharmaceutical companies, he was not a fan of the massive growth in the use of GLP-1s; one of the core tenets of MAHA is that fat people should “pull up our boot straps” (i.e., eat less and exercise more), despite much evidence to suggest dieting and exercising don’t tend to be very successful for long-term weight loss. However, he reversed course late last year, seemingly because Trump wanted to offer the popular injectables to the public at a lower price.

While RFK, Jr. may no longer be opposed to GLP-1s, that doesn’t mean MAHA’s campaign of anti-fat bias has lost any steam. During the Super Bowl, a truly demeaning ad was put out by the MAHA Center (yes, this really exists), featuring Mike Tyson calling a former version of himself “fat and nasty” and saying he wanted to kill himself because of it. He recalled his sister dying at the age of 25 from “obesity,” which he then clarified was a heart attack. (Periodic reminder that “obesity” is not a medical condition, but rather a very problematic invention of the medical establishment). I was astounded by the casual cruelty of this ad, and can say with certainty that it would never have seen the light of day a year ago. It brought back the humiliation tactics of the early 2000s, when “headless fatties” were used to accompany news stories about the obesity epidemic.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· May 3

TL cleanser

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· May 2

My god, this Kiese Laymon piece www.vanityfair.com/culture/stor...

I get and hate that the nation has handed the health of the world's children to one of the worst gamblers in North America. I get and hate that we have yet to really talk with each other about why, when our gambler in chief appears saddest, he seems, like most addicted gamblers, to erratically risk even more. Those gambles never lead to moral wins for the nation, or big wins or jackpots for the poor Black communities that most of our most prodigious athletic artists come from. Imagine gambling other people's money, taking all the wins, and never, ever admitting that you lose.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· May 1

It’s not that the wealthy become evil; it’s that their environment stops teaching them the things that nonwealthy people are forced to learn simply by living in a world that pushes back. When you can buy your way out of any mistake, when you can fire anyone who disagrees with you, when your social circle consists entirely of people who need something from you, the basic mechanism by which humans learn that other people are real goes dark.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Apr 27

I mean, shit, where’s the lie?

Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.

Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.

Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Apr 23

This is really it - what I hear from Cubans on the ground. And this is why I always say that Cuba is a theoretical argument for most leftists, a cudgel to wield against US imperialism, an ideological exercise. They don't think about the real people in Cuba who are sick to death of a corrupt regime

The issue for many Cubans isn’t that these observers care. It is that they might care more about the perceived perfidy of America’s dealings with Cuba and about romanticizing life under the regime (free health care!) than they do about the welfare of Cubans. Several Cubans in exile told me they feel that much of the attention their homeland generates is only due to the oil sanctions providing another means to criticize Trump.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Apr 23

On the Nuestra America flotilla - and yes, that includes Hasan Piker

The Nuestra América delegation did itself few favors in seeking to connect with ordinary Habaneros. Jeremy Corbyn, the septuagenarian British leftist, who had already arrived in Havana by plane, met with high-ranking Communist Party officials in the presidential palace. Pablo Iglesias, the founder of Spain’s Podemos party, stayed at the luxury Gran Hotel Bristol in Havana (“Four unique gastronomic experiences offer vibrant cuisine and entertainment,” its website says), from whence he remarked that the situation in the country was not as bad as it’s depicted abroad.

The backlash to their mission stemmed from Cubans’ frustration that, once again, foreigners were making theater from their pain and appeared more interested in siding with the Cuban regime against Donald Trump than in actually helping Cubans. That put the activists on the citizens’ grievance list—

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Apr 22

Double rainbow this evening in Oakland

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Apr 21

One might argue that many other states in the region also define themselves in ethnic terms, as Arab states, and refer to Islam as their official religion. But the existence of one illiberal state does not justify the existence of another, nor does the hypocrisy of certain critics of Israel somehow render Israel’s inequalities just. Certainly, as an American, I do not want to live in a state that considers itself “white” or “Christian,” nor do I think equal rights are possible under such a regime.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Apr 9

Some thoughts about the discourse on Cuba and Trump's oil blockade, including links to pieces written by Cuban journalists. I hope you'll read and share. open.substack.com/pub/rebeccab...

What I have seen in recent weeks—as Cuba’s already decaying electrical infrastructure has been further decimated by the halt of oil shipments from Venezuela and Mexico due to the oil embargo—is a framing of this crisis as entirely US-imposed.

This narrative is drowning out the voices of Cubans.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Apr 2

ALL OF THIS

As the fight between Washington and Havana narrows to a dispute over who takes home the guaranteed profits in such a system, the outlines of a potential deal come into focus: The generals keep their cut. The Republican donors get their roles, splitting their loot with the more pliable components of the Castro clique. The president gets his deal, and maybe a hotel. And the Cubans who believed the slogans—from either side—get nothing. The political scientist María de los Ángeles Torres has warned that a deal focused on economic opening alone would “crush the aspirations of Cubans both on the island and in exile who have fought to establish democratic rights in their homeland.”

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 30

The women of the Trump administration embody this fascist ideology in striking ways. Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and Caroline Leavitt all dutifully perform their role as footsoldiers for the patriarchy, not only in terms of the policies they enforce/defend, but through the image they project: they are all thin and attractive within a white supremacist framework. Their image is not insignificant for the agenda Trump is pushing: a version of white womanhood that, while not weak or docile, marshals its strength in service of white men whose goal is to dominate everyone else. She may have been recently discarded by Trump, but I have no doubt that when history books are written, the image of a Barbie-ified Kristi Noem with her perfect hair and makeup grand-standing in front of a packed prison cell holding mostly Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT facility will be included.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 30

Excerpt from my latest essay open.substack.com/pub/rebeccab...

Fatness was included among the “conditions” Nazis believed signified weakness—and racial impurity. Among the many antisemitic caricatures of Jews that circulated during the Nazi regime was the “fat banker,” whose body size was understood as an embodiment of his greed. Even going back to the 19th century, Sander Gilman writes, Jews were stereotyped by eugenicists as a “diseased” race because of their propensity for diabetes—which was of course attributed to their fatness and laziness.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 28

Been wanting to write this for a long time open.substack.com/pub/rebeccab...

Graphic with text “Hollywood’s epidemic of emaciation is the embodiment of fascism”

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 27

Loved this one from earlier this week in Oakland

Overpass with homemade sign “she was 13” and freeway sign “580”

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 24

💯 And to be clear, she's talking about the Cuban regime, not the Trump regime. This is how most Cubans on the ground feel - abandoned by their government. And that has been the case for years, not just since Trump imposed the oil blockade.

"None of the humanitarian aid sent to Cuba has reached me," she comments.
"My husband and I didn't enter this pregnancy irresponsibly. We did it knowing full well that we can't rely on any help from the government. It's just us against the world!"

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 24

And hooboy does he have words about the Nuestra America Convoy. And I've seen other Cubans express this sentiment - they're not grateful for the flotilla, they know it's being used to launder the regime's reputation.

The humanitarian flotilla could have arrived in Havana five months ago, two years ago, or four years ago; the country’s situation is no worse today than it was then, but at that time there was no anti-imperialist photo op to be had.

The tons of aid the convoy carries to the island are the price of a promotional package to the archaeological site where the ideological ruins of a dead utopia lie. Twenty tons of supplies to shudder at the past, distribute philanthropic crumbs, and shake the oppressor’s hand is an affordable sum, paid for on credit, just as others pay for a Caribbean cruise to visit the paradisiacal beaches of the Bahamas or the Dominican Republic.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 24

On the cowardice of Cuban exiles and the regime itself in defending itself from our rapist in chief's words about "taking Cuba"

In the Cuban exile community, where many of its political figures have sold their souls to Trump (though one could well argue that those souls had been sold beforehand), the U.S. president’s overbearing attitude and tone of contempt toward Cuba has met with little resistance, placing them in a position of subservience from which the language of the opposition cannot save them,

Given Trump’s inability to carry out his abuses in private, no one has been more taken aback than the Havana regime itself. They have never received such explicit insults and threats from any U.S. president, and they have never responded with less force.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 24

First up: Trump/Rubio's negotiations. That second sentence is a gut punch.

One oligarch is not the enemy of another, and the kind of stability an oligarch needs cannot come from a popular mandate. Nor is there any reason to compel the Cuban government to comply with certain norms of liberal democratization when what remains of those norms is being dismantled everywhere.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 22

Yoani Sánchez invented independent media in Cuba. Her PSA from yesterday: “We aren’t a theme park. Go do ideological tourism somewhere else. Here we are suffering.” I see so many people on here posting about Cuba with such a degree of ignorance & hubris, talking over Cubans & Cuba experts. 1/

Yoani Sánchez post on Facebook: Nosotros no somos un parque temático. A hacer turismo ideológico a otra parte. Aquí estamos sufriendo.

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Mar 15

Watching from the historic Alameda Theater #Oscars

Inside a movie theater watching Conan Brien

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Feb 24

@poniewozik.bsky.social there seems to be an imposter account masquerading as you

Rebecca Bodenheimer@rmbodenheimer· Feb 21