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