Tag Archives: blog

femininity, movies

Things I Loved and Forgot

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It can be such a thrill to rediscover something one lost sight of, for whatever reason. The Film Experience blog, for example, provides an oh-so-useful list of the films of 2010 grouped into categories like “Don’t Miss,” “Recommended with Reservations,” and “Make It Stop.”

According to Rogers’s list, cross-checked against the Indie Spirit Awards results, the most important films I haven’t seen yet are Black Swan, Blue Valentine, and Rabbit Hole. And I don’t have to feel bad about missing Alice in Wonderland and Iron Man 2! What a relief.

Still, get set for a tear-soaked holiday season, y’all! Maybe I’ll blow off all those movies and just re-watch Babies, which is basically one long YouTube video capturing the cuteness that transpires when small people with big eyes and no motor skills play with things (rocks; cats; goats; their siblings).

Not listed, presumably because Rogers hasn’t seen them yet: True Grit and Love and Other Drugs, both of which I’m curious about if only for the glimpses of little Gyllenhaal.

Speaking of films, a site called Jon’s Ego printed an argument against the Bechdel test (which I call “the Ms. Test for Movies“). It’s simply explained this way:

all credit belongs to A. Bechdel, friends, for this brilliant 3-part movie test:

1) Is there more than one female character? If so,
2) do the female characters talk, and if so,
3) about anything other than men?

You would be amazed at how many movies don’t pass this test. Good movies. Great movies, even — go ahead, count.

I don’t think you need to self-flagellate over this, for what it’s worth. A movie can flunk the Ms. Test — I mean, the Liz Wallace via DTWOF and Ms. Test — and still be quality. But for what it’s worth, one of the reasons I’ve never been crazy about Scorsese is that virtually none of his movies pass the LWVDTWOFAMT Test. It’s all-macho-all-the-time with Marty, with the glorious exception of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, which you could say is the only Scorsese movie he’s only made once and which almost no one talks about.

Is it so hard to have women be real people in good movies? I mean, even master-of-macho, Russell-Crowe-worshipping Ridley Scott hasThelma and Louise AND Alien on his resume.

But Jon’s Ego has a problem:

I hate the Bechdel Test. It seriously annoys me every time I see it brought up and used as proof of sexism in movies (Even when they’re used by esteemed coworkers of mine. Sorry, Rachel!). Hollywood is clearly filled with sexism but the Bechdel Test proves nothing. …
let’s try something else. Think of a movie that has a female main character. I’m not talking ensemble piece here. This has to be a clearly defined main character who is a woman. Now do an inverse Bechdel Test about the male characters. Does it pass? I’m gonna guess it doesn’t. Does that mean that that movie is sexist against men? Of course not.

Jon seems like a good guy, and I don’t mean to get all patriarchy-blaming on his ass, but he’s pulling a total Limbaugh here. First of all, his main evidence is that he’s “gonna guess” that if flipped on its head the rule will still apply — i.e., in a movie featuring a clearly-defined female lead, there will not be a substantive conversation between two male characters. I’m gonna guess he didn’t spend five minutes thinking that through. There are always prominent men in movies, even female-driven ones. And they always talk.

Check out IMDB’s Top 250 list. You may notice that you have to scroll before you find a film that even fits Jon’s criteria, which to his credit he acknowledges is a problem. Depending on your point of view, the first entry is either Psycho (#24, which, btw, is bullshit — that should be in the top 10) or Silence of the Lambs (#27). Either way, both of those films also feature very prominent male characters, characters who have, in fact, arguably juicier roles than the ostensible female leads.

If you want to be more orthodox about his rules, we can keep going til we get to Amelie (#45) which is beyond debate a movie centered around a woman. Even there, the male characters have conversations with each other about things other than women. In French, sure, but that still counts. Or Pan’s Labyrinth (#74 — also bullshit; that movie is amazing), where the only thing dudes are gossiping about is fascism.

He can’t be thinking of “Sex and the City,” since he specifically says he doesn’t mean ensemble pieces. Even if you were to consider “Sex and the City” as a counter-point, though, I’d argue that, as a 25-minute TV show starring four women or a movie based on same, it’s a very different kettle of fish. Men are shortchanged in the show and the movies alike, sure, but sitcoms involve time and narrative constraints unimaginable to most filmmakers.

No, Jon’s “guess” is plain wrong. The fact that, in the entire top 100 list, there are maybe five films where it’s arguable a woman is THE lead character — and male characters outnumber female characters in just about every film by about four to one — is all the information you need to call Hollywood sexist. The Bechdel/ Ms. test helps make that clear in a straight-forward, accessible way. It’s not an indictment, but it’s a fair and a useful tool.

black holes, family, holidays

The Men in the Family

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My uncle, who has made the same Thanksgiving dinner since 1987, died last year, suddenly. The word “suddenly” doesn’t even do justice to the speed with which he was there and then wasn’t. No one has planned the menu for the holiday this year. It’s like how if you call my grandmother, my uncle’s voice still greets you from the answering machine—he recorded over my grandfather’s voice when my grandfather died. No one has had the guts to go next.

My grandmother is still in shock. She is almost 98 years old and she never expected to outlive her husband, her son-in-law, and her son. Will she be able to churn out her annual tart apple pie? My father would kill for that pie. He used to elbow me after tasting it and say, “When are you going to ask your grandma to teach you to bake that pie?” I’d retort, “You want pie, ask her to teach you to bake.” Then we’d both settle down comfortably on the couch and read something.

The men in my family were taken down one by one and now, as the smoke clears, I wonder who is going to carve the turkey. My older brother Adam and I led the seder last year for Passover, but we did it from the kids’ table. Will Adam be able to take a stab at the bird? A thirty year old without a wife or children makes a pretty half-assed patriarch. I would be worse: I’m female, and a vegetarian. The turkey would laugh at me. I don’t even like pie.

To make matters worse, the day after Thanksgiving we’ll gather at the cemetery for my father’s unveiling. Gives a new meaning to “Black Friday,” doesn’t it?

america fuck yeah, holidays

Cheating on the Turkey

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What is the point of Thanksgiving? Is it a stuck-in-there holiday to make November more bearable and give us all a long weekend? Is it to juice the travel industry? To remind us all to feel vaguely guilty about Native Americans (although not so much that it puts us off our food)?

Was it an early attempt by enviro-conscious, earnest, lefty, do-gooding, Farmer’s Market types to get us all to eat seasonally and — perhaps — locally?

Is it a family dysfunction dress rehearsal, the main event of which is Christmas?

Is it about eating, or cooking AND eating, or cooking AND eating AND being with family?

I ask because the question arose at lunch today: Is it cheating to have Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant?

My instinct is that it is. The point of the holiday isn’t to partake of cranberry sauce, which is possibly the best straight-out-of-the-can food there is, but to partake of cranberry sauce across the table from someone you might not ordinarily see or (heaven forbid) even like all that much. And somebody you know and possibly love — not some line cook paid $5.50 an hour — has to scrape that cranberry sauce out of the can and into a bowl. Otherwise, so help me, it just doesn’t count.

My Thanksgivings, you will perhaps not be surprised to learn, have met these rabbinic requirements. There is traveling involved; there is stress; there is extended family for extended periods of time. Yes, there is turkey, though I haven’t eaten it since I was 18, and seasonally-appropriate vegetables, and apple and pumpkin pies, but the point isn’t the turkey. The point is the entire celebration, sun-up to sun-down, of America’s favorite secular holiday, one for which, yes, we all have to sacrifice a little bit.

Am I wrong? Am I *wrong*? Or, like Walter, am I not wrong, but just an asshole?

THANKSGIVING IN RESTAURANTS: CHEATING OR NOT CHEATING? Make your voice heard.

life in new york, literature

Dreamworld

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Jonathan Franzen and Lorrie Moore were beyond charming last night at 92Y — where I had never actually been before. My darling Aunts Marjy & Jane took me to that hallowed ground, which Jon Stewart described as the third holiest site to Judaism, after Jerusalem and Zabar’s.

On stage, Moore and Franzen giggled like old friends. They also each had great answers to an audience question: When do you know you’ve arrived at the right ending?

Lorrie Moore talked about the difference between novels and short stories in this respect. Short stories demand endings that shine light backwards on everything that has come before, she said. Novels, by contrast, shine light outwards on what could come next.

Jonathan Franzen said that you know you’ve hit on a good ending (if not the “right” one) when the paralyzing anxiety occasioned by all the worse endings you’ve thought of begins to fall away.

The audience sort of mooed happily, the way groups do when someone says something that makes perfect sense.

Walking out, I told my aunts that Franzen is one of my literary boyfriends. (Adorable Brit David Mitchell, who I saw read at BookCourt, is another, because I am not so monogamous in my literary life: I also go on crazy dates with Jonathan Ames, talk politics with hot grandma Anne Lamott, and have passionate Southern evenings with Ann Patchett.)

Imagine my surprise when I went to sleep that night and dreamed Franzen had become my *actual* boyfriend. Which led to this exchange over GChat:

Logan: um, did you do it?
Me: no!
Logan: just checking
Me: we walked around swarthmore arm in arm
Logan: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: isn’t that kind of even better??
Logan: that is even better. amazing, amazing dream.
Me: i also dreamt that i had to pee in a suitcase for some reason. like, everyone else got to use a toilet and i had to pee in a suitcase. but that was a separate dream.

faux gender theory, politix

"Missouri," Meet "Cop’s Wife"

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“We can have animus and not be enemies,” sayeth Jon Stewart. I can’t say I’m there yet, but it gives me something to aim for.

Carolyn Hax perfectly expresses the feeling I had at the Rally to Restore Sanity, the one I’m trying to feel again, especially after Tuesday’s results:

Missouri: Hi Carolyn,

I guess my husband and I are what the liberal East Coast would call conservative bigots. My question isn’t about that, so I won’t get into it. We are raising two kids our way, while being constantly told by the liberal media that it’s the wrong way. Sorry, but we just don’t agree, and neither do most of the people in our community.

The issue is that my husband’s job is taking him to a liberal East Coast city, and we’re now faced with the question of whether to uproot everyone and follow him there. If we go, I worry my kids will be exposed to a lot of hooey I have worked hard to keep out of their lives. If we don’t, we’re looking at at least two years’ separation during which my husband will miss the last of his daughters’ little kid years. It’s well-established around here that you can’t bubble-wrap kids, so basically I’m looking for suggestions on how to keep our values strong in our kids even if we choose to move them out east.

Carolyn Hax: You’re right to worry–we liberal East Coast dwellers have two heads, learn a secret language at Ivy League schools so we can mock real hard-working Americans, make our preschoolers watch gay porn, and scream like pod people when we see someone going to church.

The exposure-to-a-lot-of-hooey ship has already sailed, I’m afraid–you’ve bought wholesale the whole idea that there’s an “Us” and a “Them” in this country.

Here’s a little welcome brochure for you in the form of my daily life, in case you decide to tough it out in the Eastern time zone:

I’m married, and we have three little boys.

We love them, work hard to teach them manners, values, civic responsibility, respect for adults, respect for themselves.

We care about the schooling they get, the food they eat, the bedtimes they keep, the community that surrounds them, the families that take them in for play dates. We care about setting an example of strong partnership in our marriage.

We have a hard time containing our frustration when we see even the slightest glimmer of entitlement in them, even though we know intellectually that all small kids see themselves as the center of the earth. We also know that it’s up to us to teach them the value of hard work, of delayed gratification, of gratitude, of giving back as much as they take, if not more.

We also give them as much room as we can to be themselves, which means, at various times, letting them explore in stick and rocks and mud, and make play weapons, and fall off their bikes, and they’ve done target shooting and archery. (I hear a lot about attempts to “feminize” boys, and all I can say is, good luck. If it’s in them to be house kids, then they’ll gravitate that way whether they’re pushed to or not, and if it’s not in them, then they won’t. Cultural norming works better in theory than in practice.)

We encourage them to play with neighborhood kids; these neighbors include four families with their kids in faith-based schools–one believes firmly in single-sex education–and four others with kids in public schools. (My kids go private because the classes are small, much better for their temperaments.)

Have you read anything yet that makes you tremble in fear for your children?

To be fair, I’ll also say that I worship no higher power. However, I am also never in anyone’s face about that, not even when someone of faith gets into mine, which does happen. I not only respect people’s right to live as they see fit, but I also hope my kids will look to others as an example, compare other parents’ choices to ours, and choose a path based on that exploration.

Which brings me to the point I could have opened with and quit (but then I wouldn’t have been able to bring in the Pod People): If you are as assured as you suggest in the correctness–and righteousness–of the way you’ve chosen to raise your children, then there should be no reason it couldn’t withstand the challenge of other points of view. Truth likes light, doesn’t it?

Trust your choices, and trust your neighbors to be human–really, I swear they will bear an uncanny resemblance to you.

As as for Us vs. Them, may I please humbly ask of you to declare with me that enough is enough is enough?

Staying ovation for Carolyn! Full points.

Then of course there’s the adorable five-year-old child whose mother allowed him to dress up as Daphne from “Scooby Doo” and defended everything from his neon wig to his go-go boots to judgmental mommies IRL and on the web in a post called “My Son is Gay.”

SPOILER ALERT: The child in question is not actually gay. The writer is employing a rhetorical device to make the point that it wouldn’t matter to her if he becomes gay at some point but that letting him dress up as a girl if he wants on a costume-oriented holiday will not affect his sexual preferences later in life. (As she puts it, brilliantly, “I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.”)

In case Mrs. Missouri is wondering, this gender-bending Halloween is brought to you by a Stay At Home Mom who calls herself “Cop’s Wife,” sends her kids to church pre-school, and lives in the Midwest. Teh gays! Teh cross-dressers! They are EVERYWHERE. If you think you can avoid their pernicious influence by staying where you are, Mrs. Missouri, you’ve got another think coming.

Missouri, meet Cop’s Wife. Bring the kids! I think you will get along smashingly, at least until / unless Mrs. Missouri does have to transplant to some godforsaken eastern urban hellhole. (“Don’t you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.” —Alvy Singer)

But: breathe deeply, Ester. Abide. (“Calmer than you are.” —Walter Sobchak) I don’t need to resort to snark just because Mrs. Missouri did in her letter. Perhaps she is an open-minded person waiting to happen! After all, how Jesus Camp-y could Mrs. Missouri really be if she’s writing into my favorite (and East Coast based) advice columnist? Perhaps there is hope for her yet.

politix

Remember Two Years Ago?

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I do:

On Nov. 4, 2008, as on every morning during that fall’s presidential campaign, I began my workday by reviewing the latest battleground-state polls at Pollster and RealClearPolitics, checking up on the pundits at Politico and Wonkette, and seeing what the establishment had to say at the New York Times and the Washington Post. In contrast to the recent Election Days I had known, the news was more than encouraging. My co-workers planned parties. The experts were hopeful. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight predicted a landslide.

Still, concern spread through me until I was possessed: By the end of the day I resembled something out of The Exorcist: trembling and mumbling, with green-tinged skin. My husband, Ben, showed up at my office, took one look at me, and knew that I would never make it to our results-viewing parties; even if I did, I would scare the revelers. “Let’s go home,” he said, worried enough that he suggested taking a cab back to Brooklyn. I was worried enough that I agreed.

We made it only to Union Square before I threw up, splashing my fear on the inside of the car door and my beloved new suede boots. I got out and sat shivering on the curb as the cab driver muttered curses and Ben ran into stores, begging for cleaning supplies. Two Manhattanites walked by me on spiked shoes and laughed, but I barely heard them. I was thinking about Pennsylvania. …

The entirety of my oh-so-timely piece, entitled “Hope Over Experience,” has been on The Morning News for about a week now.

The funny thing is, I’m still thinking about Pennsylvania. And Nevada. And Wisconsin. (Poor Russ Feingold!) The point is, if you need me, I’ll be online shopping all day to distract myself, and pondering who I detest more: David “Pink Shirt” Brooks or Maureen “Fires of Mordor” Dowd? In fact, let’s make it a poll!

Who Is a More Worthless Human Being / Pundit?

family, music, politix

My Family Wins the Internet

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On BNReview, my father-in-law, a Russian doctor, teaches all you Americans how to drink vodka. I don’t need teaching because I have plenty of opportunities to watch the pros.

Meanwhile, my cousins of It’s the Real do it up OK Go-style with their new music video, “My Girl’s a Republican.”


My Girl’s a Republican from jeff on Vimeo.

Now I have their song competing for floorspace in my head with the Rally to Restore Sanity’s mash-up of “the Peace/Love/Crazy Train.”

Pictures of my favorite handwritten signs from the rally TK. It was pretty amazing, I have to say, to see hundreds of signs and not one typo. That should go down in history.

houzin

The ABCs of Places You Could Buy a House If You Didn’t Live in NY

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A is for Asheville!

Asheville, North Carolina, is the San Francisco of the South. It is run by hippies and retirees in equal numbers and offers plenty of NYT-sanctioned activities.


Huge Queen Anne Victorian in the historic neighborhood of Montford, a short walk from downtown Asheville. Built in 1900. Almost 4,500 square feet. Sky blue with gingerbread-house-like trim. Fireplace, wraparound porch, and turrets included. 

Property is zoned “RM8,” which presumably means something to somebody.

B is for Bisbee!

Bisbee, Arizona, is the San Francisco of the Southwest. It’s an artsy town in the mountains near the Mexico-America border, so lots of Weeds-like hijinks ensue! At least in my imagination. A guy there makes killer Killer Bee Honey.

Click Image to View SlideshowMmmmmmm … pool. Also four bedrooms to house all the jealous friends from New York who insist on flying out to use your pool.

Outside features include “Rv Hookup, Rv Parking, Sprinkler/drip,” while landscape includes “Fruit Trees, Shrubs, Desert, Grass, Gravel, Trees.” Can’t argue with that diversity! Plus your kids get to go to school in a district called Tombstone.

C is for Copenhagen!

Copenhagen is in Denmark, which is the San Francisco of southern Scandinavia and has abolished poverty and injustice. Well, almost.

I have no idea how easy it is to buy property over there, but apparently a 3-BR townhouse can be had for the equivalent of $350,000 US. Do you know what $350,000 US will buy you in Brooklyn? A garage in Bay Ridge next to an open sewer. (I’m guessing.)

D through F coming soon!