Obviously this blog is sympathetic to the larger goals of the 99 percent movement. But sometimes, I’ve got my tactical disagreements, and such is the case with what appears to be the messaging of an Occupy Sundance counterfestival that’ll be taking place in Park City when I get there.

First, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to compare the festival’s acceptance rates (about 1 percent of films make it in) to the 99 percent-1 percent divide. Unless you can document that the 1 percent of movies that got in have some sort of unfair, cronyistic advantage that let them get in despite the fact that they’re not the kind of movies people want to see (which, if that argument is to be made, make it), there isn’t really a legitimate unfairness argument to be made here. Sundance has a limited capacity for the number of films it can screen and the number of locations it can screen them at and still be a coherent festival. Some indies, like Bachelorette or John Dies at the End, are going to have a bigger draw for audiences. That’s not evidence of some sort of plutocracy: it’s a capacity and market demand fact. Having artistic criteria and needing to make the event financially successful (Sundance is, after all, a non-profit) isn’t inherently a promoter of inequality or unfairness.

I do agree with Occupy Sundance organizer Daniel J. Harris that “Submitting your debut film to multiple festivals in the USA, is costly, grueling and a gamble.” But that seems like an argument to found more legitimate festivals, to organize a mentoring program that helps first-time indie filmmakers get critiques from old festival hands to improve their pitches, or a pool that can provide entrance fee money for filmmakers in need. I’m less compelled by his argument that “Pitching tents in the snow, and yelling cine-Marxist agitprop is always a better way to promote your film than by being co-opted by The Man. Hell, globally everyone is pissed off at anyone with authority, is it not time someone made a statement or is it maybe Americans filmmakers have nothing really left to say?” But maybe I’m wrong to believe that we can’t capture a bit more of Hollywood for ourselves.

Second, it’s pretty bizarre to me that an Occupy film festival would think it was sending a smart progressive message by featuring in its lineup Steven Greenstreet’s Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street. When he launched the tumblr that inspired the film, Jill at Feministe did a nice job of explaining why Greenstreet’s so-called promotion of the movement was so creepy given the problems women have faced staying safe in the encampments. Given the issues women face gaining employment in key storymaking roles in Hollywood, there’s something pretty depressing about Occupy Sundance giving screening space to someone with less-than-revolutionary ideas about women and gender — especially since of the movies it appears to be featuring, just one of the six is by a woman. Sometimes the occupation looks like the thing it’s trying to occupy. But I’ll see in Park City for myself.

The Boss is in full rallying cry mode:

This seems practically designed to be played at Obama-Biden rallies (if not the Democratic National Convention itself). The choice of Chicago as the origin point for that sense of mutual care seems pretty deliberate. The song itself relies mostly on that central mantra, and less on the striking imagery that to my mind is the hallmark of so many of Springsteen’s best songs. But “Where’s the work that set my hands, my soul free / Where’s the spirit that’ll reign, reign over me / Where’s the promise, from sea to shining sea” sure seems like an apt set of questions in an age of continuing recession and concern about the ability of the American dream to pass viably from one generation to the next. Especially given that the title of his new album is Wrecking Ball.

Taylor Marvin, Erik Kain, and Jamelle Bouie are in the midst of a fascinating conversation about Batman, the legitimacy of the state, and the state monopoly on violence. The part of it I’m most interested, and what I want to use to pivot to a slightly different point, comes at the end of Jamelle’s post, when he writes:

Thomas Wayne was a philanthropist who sought to improve Gotham and the lives of its most vulnerable citizens. This, more than anything else, is why Bruce Wayne donned the mantle of Batman. It’s not that he’s “incapable of dealing with loss and forming real relationships,” it’s that he wants to build a Gotham where his childhood loss is never felt by anyone, ever again. Put another way—as we see with Ducard in the first film—vengence will only take you so far. You need a positive goal to keep striving. Bruce wants a better Gotham, which is why he’s willing to endure the hatred of his home if that’s what it takes to build the city into something durable.

I think it’s in part because I’m watching Downton Abbey right now, but I’m very interested in the question of when members of economically elite classes become radicalized, and what happens when they tip over. There’s a world in which Bruce Wayne could have continued his father’s tradition of philanthropy, responding to Thomas’ death by giving away even more of the Wayne family fortune and giving it even more aggressively (I would be fascinated to know if there’s any textual evidence for what Thomas’ charitable priorities are) on anti-poverty, education, or gang prevention programs. Instead, he’s going out and fighting crime, an approach that may be geared at making a better Gotham, and that may give him a direct rather than delegated hand in that process, but that also lets him physicalize his emotional pain, and dish some out himself. The approach is more radical in terms of how Wayne comports himself during the process, but not necessarily more radical in terms of what the Wayne family’s desired outcomes are.

No links roundup while I’m traveling. Hope you’re all having a good day.

GQ’s 50 Most Powerful People in Washington list came out yesterday. And it turns out that there are just 11 women on the list, two of whom (Heather Podesta and Lissa Muscatine) appear in the rankings with their husbands; three of whom (Svetlana Legetic, Jayne Sandeman and Barbara Martin*) appear as a single item on the city’s social scene; and one of whom, Buffy Wicks, appears at the end of a long list of men who will play key roles in the 2012 elections. Just five of them, Hillary Clinton, Kathy Ruemmler, Nancy Hogan, Patty Murray, and Liz Cheney get to stand on their own. There are some deeply bizarre exclusions here, ignoring women who wield power in the administration, the media, and think tanks and academia. Here are 15 we think could — and should — have made the cut.

1. Valerie Jarrett. Or Nancy-Ann DeParle. Or Samantha Power. Three of President Obama’s closest advisors are women, who have guided his thinking on everything from Libya strategy to health care reform. If that doesn’t count as power, I’m not sure what does.

2. Nancy Pelosi. The former speaker of the House may have lost her fanciest job title getting President Obama’s health care bill passed, but all that means is that she did exactly what elected officials are supposed to do: value policy results over the outcome of the next election cycle. And having your party down doesn’t mean you’re out. Pelosi is still a force in the House, even in the minority.

3. Katharine Weymouth. The Washington Post may not be the paper it once was, but that hardly means it doesn’t matter. As the Post’s publisher, Weymouth runs the biggest paper in town. She’s important, especially as the Post competes with upstarts like Politico and builds new initiatives like Ezra Klein’s publication-within-a-publication, Wonkbook.

4. Jane Mayer. The New Yorker’s resident giant slayer isn’t afraid to take on anyone, from the Koch brothers, to Art Pope, to the architects of the worst of the war on terror. Another rising Washington reporter, Annie Lowrey, who is part of the New York Times’ economic team, could also be on this list.

5. Neera Tanden. No, it’s not just because she’s my boss. It’s inexplicable that GQ would pick Liz Cheney, who runs the strawman think tank Keep America Safe and contributes to Fox News while ignoring the woman who runs one of the most powerful think tanks in Washington, and who was a key adviser to Hillary Clinton to boot. There’s real power, and there’s the ability to fling rhetorical bombs. Any power list worth its salt should distinguish between the two.

6. Maureen Dowd. She may go waspish more than she goes sincere. But even if you think she’s light, there’s no question that Dowd can skewer her subjects, or define them, whether with uncomfortable nicknames or facts.

7. Kathleen Sebilius. Or Janet Napolitano. Or Michèle Flournoy. Or Mary Schapiro. President Obama has women overseeing everything from implementation of his health care law, to homeland security, to the country’s securities oversight, a critical issue in this economic crisis. And Flournoy could be Secretary of Defense some day, too.

8. Jessica P. Einhorn, Dean of Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. SAIS is a highly respected institution, and Einhorn is part of an important generation of women in foreign policy, and this summer, will wrap up 10 years of creating the next one.

9. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The senior woman on the Supreme Court has hung on through health issues to continue her life-long fight for women’s rights.

10. Chan Heng Chee. Washington isn’t just a town where American policy gets made. It’s also the home of a vibrant diplomatic community. The deputy dean of the diplomatic corps, Ambassador Chan is the leader of Washington’s women ambassadors, a fixture in the city’s social scene, and has a long-game perspective on the American relationship with Asia.

*Full disclosure: I worked with Jayne and Barbara while I was at Washingtonian, and like and respect them both. If you’re going to put the curators of the social scene on the list, they undeniably belong there.

I haven’t read Caitlin Flanagan’s Girl Land yet, but her appearance on On Point yesterday, particularly her breathtaking condescension to Salon’s Irin Carmon about the latter’s high school dating life, has to be heard to be believed. During the hour, she spends a lot of time defending the idea that brutish teenaged boys are out to take advantage of teenaged girls. And while I’m in absolute agreement with Irin that if we want to keep girls physically and sexually safe, it makes as much sense to focus on boys as on girls, and with critics who argue that Flanagan has absolutely no insights into non-straight girls, I think there’s another broad exception to that dynamic. Flanagan seems to have no sense whatsoever that boys and girls can be friends, and that encouraging those relationships could help women build better relationships with male bosses, and male coworkers, and male friends.

My male friends are among the most important in my life. The friend I’m most in touch with from high school is a man, who introduced me to action movies and hung out with me after work and at debate team practices. There’s no question my love of campy movies like Starship Troopers and Hackers is a legacy of our friendship, and part of the reason I’m a critic. My best friends in college were the guys I worked on political campaigns with, lived with during my summer in New Haven (contra Flanagan’s domestic ideals, we survived mostly on fried chicken, pancakes, and deeply terrible takeout Chinese), and argued about movies and music with. It wasn’t that I didn’t have female friends — the women I met in college have been critical to my adult life — but there’s no question that these men were formative to my artistic, social, and moral development.

At one point during the interview, Flanagan says, “Girls are hugely interested in boys. That isn’t ever going to change.” But what she — and a lot of the culture she decries — misses is that there are a lot of different ways to be interested in boys. I would hope she’s raising her sons not just to avoid being sexual predators, but to see women as potential friends as well as lovers and wives. And I hope she wouldn’t see their adolescence as failed if they emerged from it with female friends who would last a lifetime instead of having had a bunch of girlfriends.

I’m flying to Park City today, so if posting’s a little slow or I’m not totally on the uptake with email, please forgive me. And if there are movies you want me to make sure I check out while I’m at the festival, look through the film guide and holler at me in comments.