As I wrote when "Farrah's Story," the documentary about Farrah Fawcett's final days, was attracting an enormous amount of attention, "A video of anyone on her deathbed is rare here, where dying and grieving are constructed as anomalous events best kept private, rather than natural parts of every human life." People were similarly eager to witness young British reality star Jade Goody's life coming to a close; her suffering and death from cervical cancer changed her public image from tacky, offensive gadfly to, as Meredith Blake wrote for Broadsheet, "the new 'People's Princess.'" And public grief -- or more accurately, a public version of private grief -- is just as rare and compelling as public dying. We claim that entire nations mourn after celebrity deaths, terrorist attacks and natural disasters, and we collect platitudinous soundbites from the actively grieving -- yet we rarely dwell for long on how it really feels to lose a loved one.

So when, for some reason, the cameras can't turn away, neither can we. Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette became a household name during the Olympics last month not for performing beautifully -- although she did, taking bronze -- but for performing at all just days after her mother died suddenly of a heart attack. As Joshua David Stein wrote then, the maudlin television coverage of her loss was barfy, but "Rochette's obvious emotional vulnerability couldn't help but stir. Rochette had become Perseverance incarnate ... She was no longer an athlete but a mascot for the human condition." Twenty-two years ago, speed skater Dan Jansen received the same sort of attention for competing immediately after his sister's death. To perform at that level without breaking down while in the first throes of grief is, we all agree, heroic. And perhaps part of the reason that stirs us so deeply is that we rarely acknowledge a more uncomfortable truth: That for a lot of us, simply showing up for school or work immediately after such a loss is nearly as monumental a show of determination and grace. Once the funeral is over, we're expected to carry on as usual -- even when our minds are still so saturated with grief that our daily routines feel as daunting and exhausting as an Olympic event. At least when it happens to a world-class athlete or beloved celebrity, we're allowed to be openly sad for a moment.

Now, that's also true even when it happens to a 16-year-old girl no one's ever heard of before. A video made by London high schooler Sarah Phillips to honor her mother, Debbie, who recently passed away from cancer, has gone viral since she posted it on March 2. Part of its appeal, to be sure, is Phillips' voice singing Paulo Nutini's "Autumn"; when you just hear that it's a kid singing a song for her late mother, you expect it to be heartfelt but clunky, so the clarity of her gorgeous, trained voice produces a bit of a Susan Boyle effect. But it's also just a perfectly simple and heartbreaking distillation of grief, the kind of thing we don't often share with others beyond our immediate circles and might not be able to describe to anyone if we tried. This is what we do after a loss, but before we can really carry on; we sort through old photos and memories, we find deep meaning in pop lyrics, we wish the entire world could know how amazing and important this person was and how much it hurts that she's gone. But usually, we do it in private, so as not to make anyone else uncomfortable. Sarah Phillips put it out there so the world really would know -- and so far, nearly 130,000 people have watched. Well done, Sarah. We are all so sorry for your loss.

Chances are you're already familiar with Old Spice's latest offering --namely Isaiah Mustafa, the charming star of its viral "I'm on a horse" ad, which bashes "lady-scented body wash" and orders dudes to "smell like a man, man." The spot is full of satire and swagger -- a winning combo, especially for men whose choice of personal armor is ironic cockiness. And as AdAge notes, "An ad for Gillette's body wash, with a fairly obvious proxy for the new Dove product in the shower, pointedly says, 'Just because it says it's for men doesn't mean it is.'" Nyah-nyah, Gillette just said you smell like a woman! Whatchu gonna do about that, Dove?

Nothing, judging from the Dove "Manthem," which you'll find below. Above all else, a Dove man is comfortable. Really, really comfortable. He doesn't need to thump his chest to prove his manliness -- that's what his wife, three kids and home are for, it seems. He's succeeded as a man (read: a pro-creator and provider) and so he can calmly retreat to his bathroom sanctuary and lather himself with an unpretentious body wash that doesn't scream "FOR REAL MEN ONLY." He is settled in his domesticated bliss and doesn't need a damn horse, OK?

I don't know about you, but I am fascinated by these dueling masculine identities. Bring on the advertainment.

Never mind that her lack of visibility was less a conscious rejection of the expected niceties than a function of her demanding schedule; as she told the New York Times, "[I]t's like, guys, I also have this show called 'The Mo'Nique Show' where I tape six shows a week. I have twins who are 4, so I have babies, I have an amazing husband and a son who's 19. What I can participate in I'm more than happy to." Mo'Nique's decision to prioritize her ongoing work and family life over lobbying for an Oscar, choosing to let her performance in "Precious" speak for itself, was widely cast as a deliberate and vaguely hostile political statement, in ways that seemed meant to remind us that for all her talent and success, Mo'Nique is still a Hollywood outsider.

But there is another element of politics versus performance where Mo'Nique is concerned, which can be found in the next line of her speech: "I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to, so that I would not have to. " It's worth considering that if McDaniel had wanted to launch a schmooze campaign for the Oscar she won in 1940, it would have been virtually impossible. She was barred from attending the "Gone With the Wind" premiere in Atlanta, because it would have been against Georgia law for her to sit in a theater with white people. She was not only the first African-American to win an Academy Award but the first to be allowed into the ceremony in anything but a serving capacity -- they stuck her at a table in the back. Although she was a talented singer and comedian, she won Hollywood's grudging respect by playing a maid named Mammy. And during her tearful acceptance speech (below), she said bluntly, "I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race."

It's the kind of statement that makes a 21st-century white liberal like myself cringe; that she felt the need to say that underscores just how entrenched and accepted overt racism was at the time. But even though the laws and culture have changed substantially, and you'd be unlikely to hear an African-American actor prostrate herself before white peers and viewers quite so nakedly today, it's certainly not as though black people in Hollywood are no longer burdened with representing their entire race or working overtime to prove themselves.

In the 70 years between McDaniel's and Mo'Nique's wins, only three other black actresses -- Whoopi Goldberg, Halle Berry and Jennifer Hudson -- have taken home Oscars. Just one of those was for a leading role, and if you guessed that went to the only thin, light-skinned, button-nosed, biracial one of the bunch, you get a gold star. Four black men have won best actor -- three of those in the last 10 years -- and four have won best supporting. So that's 13 acting awards out of 328. In 82 years. This year also saw the second African-American to be nominated for best director and the first ever African-American screenwriter to win. In 82 years. Welcome to post-racial America.

But at least Mo'Nique won for a role in a film by and about black people, not for playing a sassy maid, right? Well, yes and no. It's fantastic to see black filmmakers recognized -- just as it's fantastic to see a woman win best director, even if it's for a distinctly testosteroney film -- but that hardly means we've transcended demeaning stereotypes. Don't get me wrong -- Mo'Nique did a marvelous job with the material. But that material was, in one critic's description, "an over-the-top political fantasy that works only because it demeans blacks, women and poor people" -- and Hollywood doesn't seem to have wrestled too hard with the question of why such movies are frequently crowd pleasers.

Consider the shocked reaction of umpteen reporters upon learning that the movie's star, Gabourey Sidibe, is nothing like Precious -- that she was, in fact, acting. Consider the clip they chose to show last night that featured Sidibe stealing a bucket of fried chicken, for crying out loud. Consider that four of the best picture nominees were widely criticized for their treatment of race -- "Precious" for all of the above; "District 9" for its arguably sketchy handling of an apartheid allegory and undeniably degrading depiction of human black Africans; "The Blind Side" and "Avatar" for being yet more iterations of a tired and condescending "white savior" narrative. That's not to say those films were wholly without merit or even necessarily undeserving of the praise, but when four of the year's most beloved movies contain problematic racial tropes, it's a bit premature to congratulate the Academy or ourselves for having come so far in the last 82 years. I mean, please, don't make me bring up "Crash."

So I was thrilled to hear Mo'Nique acknowledge the crap she took leading up to last night -- and the fact that her performance transcended it anyway -- right off the bat. I cheered again when she said to her husband and manager, "Thank you for showing me that sometimes you have to forgo doing what's popular in order to do what's right. Baby, you were so right." It wasn't about disrespecting her fellow nominees; it was about respecting herself and her work. It was about being there as a credit to her profession, not her race or her gender or her size or the sisterhood of hairy-legged comics in open marriages, or whatever else people want her to represent. It was about unapologetically standing up for herself and her performance in a way Hattie McDaniel never could have. It worked, and she earned it.

But like every historic first, Bigelow's dual victory was both a stunning personal achievement and resonant metaphor. And not everybody's been thrilled.

Just a few weeks ago critic Martha P. Nochimson wrote an essay here that lambasted Bigelow as "the Transvestite of Directors … masquerading as the baddest boy on the block." And after last night's ceremony, journalist Farai Chideya promptly tweeted, "Among Bigelow's best-known films are three male ensemble casts: 'Hurt Locker,' 'Point Break,' 'K-19 the Widowmaker'. … kudos to cast and to filmmaker and to topic. Gender matrix not so much." So before we bust the pink champagne, perhaps we should ask: Does Bigelow's victory still count for the ladies?

I have a diploma with the word "film" on it, so let me take a crack here.

Of course it does. Are you freaking kidding me?

It's funny, I don't remember anybody trotting out drag queen metaphors when John Madden's "Shakespeare in Love" or Anthony Minghella's "The English Patient" won Oscars, despite their weepy, girly plots. For that matter, in all the conversation about the big battle of the exes between Bigelow and James Cameron, did anybody stop to chide Cameron for an entire career built on decidedly female-centric fare? "Aliens," "The Abyss," "Titanic" and "Avatar" might not be "You've Got Mail," but they're all lousy with strong leading ladies and maternal subtext. (If Cameron were a woman, many large, serious books would be written about the feminist iconography of his otherworldly oeuvre.) Why then are Bigelow's critics so quick to bag on her for doing what good filmmakers do -- making movies with a unique perspective, and an appeal outside of the director's own demographic? Do we really still think the length and breadth of female filmmaking is "Julie and Julia"? Dear God, please, no.

When I was in film school in the '80s, a time when professors still thought it was acceptable to comment on the weight and dating habits of girl students, there barely was any concept of women's cinema. In four years, I studied exactly one female director -- Leni Riefenstahl.

Fortunately, it was also a golden moment for young independent filmmakers, some of whom, miraculously, were not males. (Not all of them were white either -- go figure.) Patricia Rozema, Martha Coolidge and Mira Nair were just breaking out, but the women who electrified my little group of black-clad clove cigarette smokers were Penelope Spheeris and Kathryn Bigelow. Spheeris made rock 'n' roll documentaries and the cult hit "Suburbia"; Bigelow made a weird little vampire movie called "Near Dark." No hankies. No hugging. Kickass!

As the years went by and Bigelow went on to make tough little dramas like "Blue Steel" and "Point Break" -- as well as directing plenty of television cop shows. Her action-oriented style matured, but her style remained distinctive, consistent and always adrenalized. Does that make her a gender betrayer? I don't know, is "Precious" director Lee Daniels a chick for making a movie about a pregnant teenage girl and her mom? 

Yet Bigelow's win seems to raise a nagging question in certain heads: Why is it that when women finally get a big award winner, it's for a war picture instead of the kind of fare we so often wind up directing -- those warm Nancy Meyers/Nora Ephron relationship stories? Well, maybe the reason movies like "Mamma Mia!" don't snag the big prizes is as simple as the fact that they're just not that great. Does anybody complain that men are being artistically shut out from serious competition when they go ahead and make "X-Men"?

That's the thing that's both scary and fantastic about Bigelow's win; it says that maybe if we women are stuck making rom-coms and weepies, it's not the fault of the system but ourselves. Want more golden statues on the lady shelf? Then fight like hell to make better movies, whatever the subject matter. The last time a woman was nominated for a best director Oscar, it was Sofia Coppola for "Lost in Translation," a film that was piffling at best. (The only other two female nominees -- the indisputably great Jane Campion for "The Piano" and Lina Wertmüller for "Seven Beauties" -- had their work cut out for them against "Schindler's List" and "Rocky," respectively.) The problem with devaluing Bigelow's win as being merely a clever bit of cinematic cross-dressing is that it takes away from the fact that "The Hurt Locker" is a great film, full stop.

So it's no wonder that a groan went up from my couch when Bigelow's walkout music last night swelled to the strains of Helen Reddy's cheeseball anthem "I Am Woman." (What was the Academy's plan if Lee Daniels had won? Run DMC's "Proud to Be Black"?) See, everybody? Hollywood can recognize a woman! Let's give a hand for the little lady! 

Of course masculinity and femininity inform the stories we tell. "An Education" was the story of a girl. "The Hurt Locker" was the story of a man. "Avatar" was the story of a bunch of blue people in a tree. Filmmakers bring their own brand of life experience to the table; there isn't nor should there be an utterly gender-neutral perspective. But anyone who's seen "The Hurt Locker" and thinks that it's just some dude flick is selling its director far short. As a filmgoer who's been following her career for the last 23 years could tell you, it's a Kathryn Bigelow movie. It has her gritty style, her unmistakably dark humor, her gut-punching humanity.

Perhaps, then, it's a good thing the Oscars chose to remind the world last night that Bigelow is both a filmmaker and a female. I hope every film school chick in the world is cheering her triumph, because it represents a victory over sexist college professors and dumbass studio executives and every producer who thinks ladies should stick to baby comedies. It represents the door opening just a little wider for talented, accomplished women to tell the stories they want to tell, whether they're about sweeping romance or kooky comedy or blowing stuff up. There is no need to take away one iota of her accomplishment by suggesting Bigelow earned it by being a dude in a dude's genre. She got it by being Kathryn Bigelow -- a fierce, independent and utterly deserving filmmaker. She's not the king of the world. She is woman. Hear her roar.

In 1979, a "powerful peer-reviewed" University of Alabama study on "the effects of porn viewing on men" found  that "men who consumed large amounts of pornography were less likely to want daughters, less likely to support women's equality and more forgiving of criminal rape" and "also grossly overestimated Americans' likelihood to engage in group sex and bestiality." Jennings Bryant, the lead researcher behind the study, told Paul: "If you can't demonstrate that what you're doing to research participants is ultimately beneficial and not detrimental, and you can't eradicate any harm, you're required not to do that thing again." Grad students who have tried to follow up on the landmark findings have been given the red light.

Of course, there are ways to get around that ethical hitch -- for instance, devising studies that don't require subjects to log hours at the lab watching porn -- but the research is often left to enterprising journalists like Paul, who seem to have an agenda of their own, a moral point to make about the corrupting force of porn. And as she writes in the Post, she is frequently approached by young people who "pass along an unpopular message: Growing up on porn is terrible." (But of course having written a book titled "Pornified," she is likely to attract those that identify with her message, and thus her hypothesis is continually reinforced.) On the flip side, there are members of the "porned" generation, like myself, who feel that their experience of "growing up on porn" can't be fairly or accurately summarized as "terrible." And, sometimes, we offer up our own nuanced -- and, believed me, conflicted -- experiences to counter the anti-porn polemics.

This all makes for scintillating debate, but it's not science. On one point, Paul and I can agree: "An entire generation is being kept in the dark about pornography's effects" -- and that too seems ethically questionable.