4B — Thursday, January 28, 2016
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
By ANA LUCENA
For The Daily
You’ve probably seen the story
on social media about how the
merchandise for “Star Wars: The
Force Awakens” angered long-
time fans of the franchise when
the protagonist Rey (Daisy Rid-
ley, “Scrawl”) was not depicted
in most of the promotional toys.
The way Rey has been left out
of the toys used to promote the
seventh
installment
parallels
the lack of toys made depicting
Black Widow (Scarlett Johans-
son, “Lucy”) when “Avengers:
Age of Ultron” was released last
year, which went so far as to
replace her with Captain Amer-
ica in a Lego set based on a scene
she starred in. Even “The Force
Awakens” director J.J. Abrams
has expressed his disapproval at
the lack of Star Wars merchan-
dise depicting Rey, according
to Entertainment Weekly. After
Leia made the change from prin-
cess to general for the Resistance
in “The Force Awakens,” there is
no doubt in my mind Abrams and
his team expanded the possibili-
ties for women in this cinematic
universe and beyond. I hope
filmmakers follow his lead to
provide characters that female
moviegoers can relate to and be
inspired by just like their male
counterparts.
I longed for such representa-
tion growing up and never got
it. The few movies with heroines
who made it to the big screen —
like Jennifer Garner’s “Elektra”
and Halle Berry’s “Catwoman”
— were critically panned as some
of the worst movies ever made. I
thought it was unfair these char-
acters were so poorly adapted,
as it robbed me of fictional do-
gooders I could see myself in as I
strived to become someone who
could take care of herself.
This was always apparent on
Halloween, when us girls would
be pushed to dress like demure
princesses or pretty fairies,
while the boys got to emulate
butt-kickers like Superman, G.I.
Joe and other men who made
a difference. Those who dared
demonstrate their connection to
the good role models presented
in these male-dominated genres
were ridiculed for wearing a
“boy’s costume.”
Obviously,
just
because
someone has a different gen-
der than you doesn’t mean you
can’t relate to them. However,
I found it deeply discouraging
that the women in these films
only served as a distracting love
interest, such as Mary Jane in
the “Spider-Man” franchise, or
an administrative sidekick that
provided emotional support as
a man struggled to save the day,
such as Pepper Potts in the “Iron
Man” franchise.
I want the toy industry to
know they are wrong if they
believe the horribly outdated
stereotypes that boys won’t sup-
port a female hero and girls only
want to be princesses. Many of
my female friends growing up
owned merchandise of the male
heroes they wanted to be like
in spite of their gender. Once,
when we were little and play-
ing make-believe, my brother
was upset he couldn’t play as
the tomboy Buttercup from
“The Powerpuff Girls” because
he was of the opposite sex, even
though he identified with her
brash nature and admired her
confidence. Moms, aunts and
grandmas have shown me pic-
tures of their adorable little
boys in Princess Elsa costumes
from “Frozen” simply because
they love her character.
Though the landscape of
female heroes is changing, with
Marvel’s “Jessica Jones” and
“Agent Carter” making a splash
in the TV world, there still are
not enough women leading films
as heroes. As girls have every
right to be represented and
addressed in the media as any
other demographic, we need to
embrace the few heroines we
have to build a space in this mar-
ket for more to come.
WALT DISNEY PICTURES
Motherf*ckers act like they forgot about Rey.
Where are our Rey
action figures, Walt?
By GIANCARLO BUONOMO
Daily Food Columnist
When I first moved to Rome
last winter and began walk-
ing around the neighborhood
that would be my home for the
next four months, it wasn’t
the ancient, crumbling Aure-
lian walls that made the biggest
impression on me. It wasn’t the
preponderance of Vespas, or the
number of Apollo and Venus
lookalikes. It was that within
two blocks of my apartment,
there were four butcher shops.
Four busy, expansive butcher
shops, staffed by greying men in
blood-stained aprons. At home
in Boston, I knew of only one
devoted butcher shop in the
whole city — most people just
went to the supermarket. Some-
times, I’d tiptoe into one of the
shops, listening to the thump of
cleavers against wooden boards
and breathing in the heavy, ripe
aroma of raw flesh, until someone
finally asked me if I was going to
buy something. That these shops
all thrived despite their proxim-
ity, and that everyone seemed to
shop there, fascinated me.
Whenever I walk into Ann
Arbor’s Sparrow Market, I think
back to happy moments in Rome.
One of the only dedicated butch-
ers left in the area, Bob Sparrow
has presided over his shop for 32
years now, and has become the
main source of high-quality meat
for both home cooks and restau-
rant chefs alike. And for me — I
recently began curing meat in my
basement, and Sparrow was the
only place in town where I could
find pork cheeks.
I dropped by the shop recent-
ly to get the skinny (and the
fatty) from Bob himself. When I
arrived the other morning, Bob
was behind the long glass dis-
play case, working on a mound of
shell-pink chicken breasts. With
a scimitar-like knife, he trims
off the ragged edges, and then
butterflies the meat open with
a practiced swipe. Above him,
two tanned hams and a bone saw
hang from the ceiling. Beneath
him, the tile floor sparkles, clean
as a surgical theater.
“How are we doing, brother?”
he said, rhyming “brother” with
“udder.” “You don’t mind if I
work while we talk, right?”
In person, Bob doesn’t look like
your stereotypical butcher. Jerky-
thin, with a shaved head, thick
black glasses and a soft voice, he
gives off a somewhat monkish
aura. But Bob’s been at the cutting
board his entire life. He grew up
in tiny Willis, Michigan, 20 miles
outside of Ann Arbor, on a work-
ing farm. He’d help his parents
slaughter the animals they raised
and taught himself knife work by
trapping and skinning fox, mink
and raccoon.
He moved to Ann Arbor 34
years ago, and apprenticed for a
bit with another butcher, but he
liked being his own boss better.
After two years, he and his wife
opened up Sparrow Meat Mar-
ket in Kerrytown, and they’ve
been there ever since. In his
time, Bob’s seen more than a
few local butchers go under, as
supermarkets with pre-cut and
packaged meat become more
popular with harried shoppers.
Even when a small-time butcher
hustles, it’s hard to compete with
megamarts.
“I think it’s just too much
work and not enough profit. You
have to be much more involved
— we’re open seven days a week,
and I also own all of this,” he
said, gesturing to the main space
of the market, which holds pro-
duce and dry goods and other
specialty products. “The only day
we’re closed is Christmas.”
For a while, American butcher
shops seemed destined for the
slaughter. According to the Chi-
cago Tribune, there was an 18
percent decrease between 1997
and 2007. In Britain, it was even
worse — by 2008, 23 butcher
shops were closing every month.
As profits decreased, and fewer
and fewer people were interested
in apprenticing, many butchers
were forced to retire or sell their
businesses.
When I asked Bob if the num-
ber of customers had decreased
in recent years, he gave an
amused smile.
“No, it’s gone waaaaaayyyyy
up. Especially younger people,”
he said. “Definitely it’s the young-
er crowd, not people my own age,
who are more open-minded.”
As gourmet cooking, local
ingredients and an overall obses-
sion with craft become more and
more popular in America, butch-
ers like Bob are experiencing a
needed boost in both sales and
appreciation. Not that the work
itself has gotten any easier —
butchery requires lifting heavy
hunks of meat, and wielding
blades sharp enough to cut them
(or a finger) straight in half. But
Bob sees his role as a butcher as
more than just a fabricator of
flesh. He’s the link to their food
that most people don’t realize
they want until they enter the
butcher shop.
“I know it’s the internet age
and all, and everyone’s always
walking around on their phones,
but they still want human interac-
tion,” he said. “You can’t kill that.”
“I’m not a picky eater, but I
want to see where my food came
from and who’s handled it,” he
added.
He takes this role so seriously
that he’s willing to slice through
popular appeal and forgo bou-
tique farms in favor of larger,
better established meatpackers
in Detroit, if he doesn’t think the
product meets his standards.
“I’m reluctant if someone calls
me up and says ‘I’ve been an
organic or grass-fed farmer for
two years,’” he explains. “I don’t
think you really know enough
at that point to be selling to the
public.”
Bob has increased his business
by supplying meat to various res-
taurants around town. But he’s
also become the go-to guy for
anyone in town interested in pre-
paring the more overlooked ani-
mals and organs — suckling pigs,
pheasants,
sweetbreads,
pork
cheeks, Bob can find pretty much
anything if you ask him.
As I prepared to leave, Bob
asked me if there was anything
special I wanted him to order for
me.
“Can you get me beef bung?” I
asked. Beef bungs are the stom-
ach lining of cow, used to encase
large pieces of meat during cur-
ing.
“Beef bungs? You serious?”
“Shit,” I thought. “That was
too weird of a request.”
Bob reached into a cooler and
pulled out of bag of bone white
tubes.
“How many do you want?”
FOOD COLUMN
The longtime butcher
of Sparrow Market
FILM NOTEBOOK
DESIGN BY GABY VASQUEZ