Clearly Nebulous

Friday Movie (Non)review: "What's Your Number?"

There has to be a very compelling reason to get myself over to the mall, pay way too much money, sit in a freezer-cold room in an uncomfortable chair and watch a movie straight through without being able to hit pause. And that vibrating phone in my pocket during the show had better be because one of the kid's hair is on fire.

Rarely are there must-see-in-the-theater movies -- the new Batman series has me waiting until next year... nothing else right now screams at me, "Get thee to a cinema, pronto!"

So writing movie reviews of movies I haven't seen seems ridiculous. But it's my little way of protesting the garbage that is coming from La-la Land. Reading the bad reviews of those who have actually seen the film is enough to reinforce what I said a couple weeks ago: What is wrong with Hollywood? Why is it so hard for them to make movies women want to see?

 

How good can a movie be when it is based on telling your "number"? Why repeat that to anyone else?

 

Latest fiasco: What's Your Number?  From the three reviews I read,  it seems this movie is obviously trying to cash in on the success of Bridesmaids. Tinseltown thinks we want to see a movie about a non-existent Marie Claire article (apparently it's actually based on a book called 20 Times a Lady) compelling a woman to go back and revisit possible romance with all her exes.

Ok, the premise ain't that bad -- but they have taken what seems like an interesting odyssey (according to Amazon reviews of the book -- although they could all be penned by friends of the author...) and turned it into even more crude sex jokes and clumsy slapstick. (The reviewers stopped counting the number of times they heard the word "vagina.") But we can't even point the finger at the usual suspects -- men writing what they think is a funny chick movie.

 

Skip Number and rent the comic genius of Bridesmaids instead.

 

This was written by three women, including the book's author. I would love to ask them: Is this the movie you intended, or did you simply write what you thought would get the green light? If this is not the movie you intended, why did you cave to the studio execs' re-write requests?

Yeah, I haven't seen this movie myself, nor Bridesmaids for that matter. But I would choose a rental of the latter over paying way too much for a bad movie that once again misses the mark of what women want in a cinematic experience.

Pottymouth's Apology to Palin Falls Short

So Bristol Palin had a run-in with a kinda drunk guy at a bar in Hollywood. He started calling her mom names, and Bristol stood up to him. She asked him to say specifically why her mom deserved such a verbal attack. Of course he had no response and continued with the insults, eventually throwing some Bristol's way.

In the aftermath, Palin-haters called it staged and gave Bristol a lashing for bringing up the man's sexual orientation. But Bristol explained on her Facebook page, that she only brought it up because of the rampant misconceptions by those in the gay community regarding her mother. She said the main reason she chose to confront him was to make him see that

"You can disagree with her politics without vilifying her or lying about us. Isn’t it time for this crazy hatred to stop?"

Bristol had guts, standing up to this guy who is pretty buff, and she kept her cool as she did it.

Well, apparently the guy has sobered up and is feeling some remorse... sort of. In a statement, he apologized to Bristol, but fell short of apologizing for what he said about her mom. (He also said that this was not staged.) 

" ...I have come to the conclusion that no matter what my feelings are towards Sarah Palin, I should not have expressed them towards her daughter, Bristol Palin... I expressed my feelings in an improper manner in the heat of the moment, and allowed my emotions to get the better of me."

I'm sorry, but that falls a little short.

Sure the guy is entitled to his feelings -- and at least he acknowledged that he expressed them in an improper manner. But no direct apology for the names he called Sarah? Don't make him question and face exactly what those feelings are based on? Does having a differing political opinion entitle you to think someone is "a whore" and "the Devil"?

I try to challenge people all the time, even when they use less crude language. Hillary did not deserve to be called "a b*tch," Obama does not deserve to be called "a communist," and Sarah Palin (and Michele Bachmann) do not deserve to be called "dumb."

But amazingly, over and over, I hear mature adults defending these types of comments with "Well, they act like that" and that they are "entitled to their opinion." Really?

If you heard your child calling their principal, their teacher, heck even their sibling such names and they presented those same arguments to you -- would you say "Yep, you're right."

Vilifying someone is never right, and in the political realm, all it does is confound an already highly contentious atmosphere. By all means, express your opinions about issues, policies, and any politician's positions on them. But leave out the name-calling -- if it ain't right for the school yard, it ain't right anywhere else.

Liberal Dictionary Entry #1: Hypocrisy = Palin?!

As I go about my daily reading of media that lean left or lean right, through the lens of someone who herself does both (depending on the issue) -- and being a bit pedantic (I was a proofreader in another lifetime) I occasionally come across a glaring misuse of a simple term.

Today I have to take issue with the Left's use of the words "hypocrite" and "hypocrisy." I'll skip the overdone citing of the Webster entry, and just point out that the definition applies to saying one thing while doing another.

To those in the liberal camp however, it applies to anyone's past behavior, too. Correction: Any conservative's past behavior. (For we all know that fellow liberals' pasts are not subject to scrutiny.) Both Bristol and Sarah Palin are currently being labeled by the Left as hypocrites for advocating abstinence.

 

Liberals failed to see the impact of this ad, and all the positive publicity that Bristol brought to the great work by the Candie's Foundation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpHlztPeHf8

 

In Bristol's case, her campaign with The Candie's Foundation  was attacked mostly saying that she was a hypocrite for telling girls not to have sex when she did. Liberals -- I imagine wanting to protect their sexual agenda -- failed to realize that the perfect spokeswoman is someone who has been there and regretted it and is telling a cautionary tale.

No, they think the story is how much Bristol was paid. (And where are the stories about how much liberal celebrities get paid for liberal causes? Nowhere). 

 

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin -- apparently because she supported abstinence education (which as Ramesh Ponnuru reported is often misrepresented) means that her personal sex life is on the table. So much for all the cries that such topics are none of our business (see Clinton/Lewinsky scandal).

Some writers have had back-handed defenses of Palin -- Nick Gillespie, in his WashPost review of the McGinnis book,  said he "fails to [see] the significance of Palin’s premarital sexual history (one wonders if and when male politicians will be subjected to the same examination)."

Of course he opens that review reminding everyone that "a whopping 66 percent of adults hold an unfavorable view" of Palin, and it seems his only purpose for taking McGinnis to task is for not hitting Palin for the real reasons one should, which Gillespie then goes on to list in detail.

 

Apparently enjoying the wild outdoors means we get to know what happens behind closed doors.

 

Another WashPost writer seems to take the same tack -- telling everyone to stop all the Palin bashing, as she also reminds us of her unelectability, ridicules her hairdo (I thought that was off-limits -- oh wait, that was for Hillary), and lists all the other bad things people say about her.

But it is this female writer who comes to this conclusion (yes, those capitalized words are annoyingly used):

If there is one thing that is true about Sarah Palin, it is that Her Private Life Is Not Off Limits. I’m sorry. Once you have a reality TV series, once you invite the cameras in, the blinking red eye never turns away.

So you sign up for a show that displays the state you live in and its astounding beauty, and you have a crew film your family as they enjoy the wonders of Mother Nature -- and that entitles the world to know your sexual history?!

The true hypocrisy is in the double standards that the Left practices every day regarding what they expect from their conservative opponents vs. their liberal compadres.

The Hollywood He-Man Woman Haters Club

Why can't Hollywood get women right? More often than not, female characters in the movies and television shows that come out of Lala-Land are an insult to the better sex.

Just look at the theater marquee today and you'll see a perfect reflection of how the movies forsake women. For every  gem like The Help, you have a dozen movies that do women wrong.

 

Why can Hollywood only come out with great stories like The Help once or twice a year?

Run far, far away from I Don't Know How She Does It that apparently takes a beloved book and once again ruins it by glamming up the lead character and then using cliches to tackle the mommy wars. The Salon review's response to the title is "Why would anyone care?" Enough!

You may get a strong lead character like Helen Mirren in The Debt, or strong supporting roles like Kate Winslet in Contagion -- but for the most part, the dearth of even likeable ladies in films predominantly aimed at the male demographic is astonishing.

The good news in television, according to Hank Steuver's preview of the fall season in the WashPost, is that women are writing, producing and starring more than ever before. But the excellent article -- titled "Bunnies, babies and broads: What is TV trying to tell us about women?" -- has the author writing in his notes again and again as he watches premiere episodes of new programming WHAT THE [EXPLETIVE] HAPPENED TO WOMEN?

From the Charlie's Angels reboot that is nothing like the new movies (despite the presence of producer Drew Barrymore) and is just a jiggle show on high octane, to The Playboy Club which once again glamorizes the sexist environment behind those doors, to the seemingly benign Whitney which tries hard to make obnoxiousness in a woman seem desirable.

 

Another good thing about Up All Night is a stay-at-home dad who is manly, supportive, and realistic.

 

There are a few new shows that are getting it right. Up All Night is fresh and fun -- and Maya Rudolph's send-up of an Oprah-esque character is spot-on (without going over-the-top as she hilariously did on SNL). And Pan Am shows promise with what Stuever calls a "watered-down proto-feminist ideal" (although he doesn't know if it will "fly.")

But overall, one has to wonder why Hollywood gets it wrong over and over again. Even knowing how messed up they all are, they have millions to play with. Can't they find writers who can create characters that truly reflect the substance and depth of real women?

How to Save a Life... or Two!

It's happened again. or at least, we're hearing about it again. We honestly cannot begin to know how many times this happens and no one finds out.

Another desperate mother has murdered her newborn child... but this time she also murdered his twin. And this was not a young teenager. This was a 25-year-old. It is yet to come out exactly why this particular young woman felt so threatened by motherhood, but we have heard this story before.

Perhaps she feared her parents would throw her out of the house. Maybe they disapproved of the father of the babies. Or perhaps it was the babies' father she feared. It could be she was concerned about losing her job. Or maybe she was overwhelmed by the prospects of caring for a baby (or twins -- we don't know if she knew).

The bottom line is, whatever drove her to do this, she considered her babies to be the problem. She reached the conclusion that killing her children was either the only way or the best way out of her dilemma.

WHY?!

Why do we continue to allow women to think that the baby is the problem? That if the baby is disposed of, the problem will just go away? Why did this young woman have to suffer in silence for months, not knowing what to do?

Ultimately I believe she is responsible for her actions, and should pay the price, giving her state of mind some consideration. But there should be justice for these nascent lives that she ended with her own hands.

Otherwise we will see many more decisions like this one in Canada where a then-19-year-old strangled her newborn son and was eventually given a suspended sentence because the judge wanted to recognize "the onerous demands [of] pregnancy and childbirth." As the author of this article points out, you're essentially allowing "fourth term abortions."

Now I know full well the demands of pregnancy and childbirth. And -- what kind of society are we when we allow infanticide to solve the challenges new mothers face?

It's not enough simply to have safe haven laws, although we certainly should make them known to all young women (and young men) as an option for getting them out of their predicaments. We also have to let women in crisis know that there is help for them.

 

 

If there is someone's wrath they fear, the answer is to get out of that relationship or out of that house. If it is losing their job that troubles them, there are lawyers willing to help them fight. If there are material needs, there are numerous agencies to assist them. And of course, there are countless couples willing to adopt their child, regardless of the circumstances.

But the most immediate thing we can do -- tell our daughters (and sons!), and friends and family members -- that if they ever find themselves in this predicament, you will be there to help them. Let them know that there is no reason to be ashamed and they can always come to you for support. That every baby is a miracle, and there are other solutions to any obstacles.

Do it today. A new life may depend on it. 

Speak Your Voice

That's what Oprah said on her final show. I'm sure she said many other memorable messages, but that was the one that truly resonated. For of late my voice has been muted.

Well, some would disagree (fellow commenters on Dave L's facebook page, I'm looking your way) but it's true. I have not only been remiss in writing this blog, I have slacked off on spreading the word on what I find important.

Sure, I have posted and shared links, tweeted and retweeted, and commented pointedly from time to time. But even as I continue to read the Washington Post every day, and watch cable news, and read articles on-line -- itching to speak my mind... Still I remained relatively silent.

I have to admit it was based on fear.

 

Oprah saying goodbye has compelled me to say something, anything!

Like so many women, I was afraid to speak up too loudly. Afraid that what I had to say didn't matter. That no one was interested in my point of view. That I might offend people I care about. That my writing was mediocre and unoriginal. 

But I know that's not who I am. 

I don't have to impress anyone. I don't have to become rich or famous. I don't have to solve all the worlds problems. But I can speak my voice even if, as Oprah said, it is only for a dozen people.

Now perhaps I shouldn't follow the advice of a woman whose network is choosing to speak to the world -- the last time I checked the listings -- with six back-to-back episodes of The Judds. But we all have our off days. We're not going to change history every day.

 

If this show is anything like the Judds' previous Oprah Show apppearances, it is a train wreck I do not care to watch ever again. For their own sake, I sincerely hope it is otherwise... 

But especially as women, we can be encouraging of one another. I look at this blog as a way of not only encouraging, but challenging women to think a little deeper, to seek to know a little more, to reach out and do a little more -- however small it may be.

We may never know exactly how many of those we reach out to actually take notice, or how many then turn around and tell someone else. We may never know the full impact of our words and actions. 

But speak we must... and so I will.

 

If you would like to join in the conversation, I highly encourage you to do so. Reading the intro and reader's guide at the left should be helpful...