Slate, inspired by Transformers, ran a contest for movie titles based off of toys?
My favorites? He-Man and the Infinite Sadness and Night of the Cabbage Patch Kids—This Time, Your Vegetables Will Finish You.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Snark Attack 2
I wanted to get my thoughts out before I read any other reviews of Lear, specifically The Washington Post's, since I knew they were pretty much universally complimentary.
Sure enough, WaPo practically (to use a slighly vulgar term picked up from Victoria) licks the production. You can read it here.
I understand that my own thoughts are catty and harsh and come imbued with a certain "I know better" tone. I don't know better and I certainly don't think I could do better, but the problem is I care passionately about how Shakespeare is both presented and perceived today, and I think there are problems. And I get riled up. And then I get bitchy.
Basically, I just wanted to let you all know I recognize that. And that I don't think I am the be-all and end-all and that I know these are talented people working on these productions I shred. It's just that, because I know they are talented, I expect more, which leads to great disappointment.
Um...that's it, really. Just wanted to apologize for sounding like a crazed militant. I kind of am, but that doesn't make it less obnoxious.
And if you see Lear, I want to know what you think of it! Especially if you disagree. Maybe I'm just not getting something.
Sure enough, WaPo practically (to use a slighly vulgar term picked up from Victoria) licks the production. You can read it here.
I understand that my own thoughts are catty and harsh and come imbued with a certain "I know better" tone. I don't know better and I certainly don't think I could do better, but the problem is I care passionately about how Shakespeare is both presented and perceived today, and I think there are problems. And I get riled up. And then I get bitchy.
Basically, I just wanted to let you all know I recognize that. And that I don't think I am the be-all and end-all and that I know these are talented people working on these productions I shred. It's just that, because I know they are talented, I expect more, which leads to great disappointment.
Um...that's it, really. Just wanted to apologize for sounding like a crazed militant. I kind of am, but that doesn't make it less obnoxious.
And if you see Lear, I want to know what you think of it! Especially if you disagree. Maybe I'm just not getting something.
Snark Attack
I'm trying to write a reasoned, well-structured and snob-free review of the production of King Lear I saw last night, and it's proving incredibly difficult, both to structure and to sanitize. To get it out of my system, I'm going to vent about it here, and then maybe a) I won't feel the need to be so cruel and b) I can have a starting point from which to edit my thoughts. Huzzah.
First, a confession. Well, two confessions. The first is that, while I firmly believe Shakespeare is meant to be performed, I vastly prefer reading the tragedies to seeing them. They are very, very difficult to perform in a way that sustains interest, or so I am led to believe by the productions I have seen. Second confession is that I have seen less Shakespeare than I should at this point in my Shakespeare-loving career, and as a result this is only the second Lear I've encountered. The first was the superb and all around sublime RSC production with Ian McKellen. That production proved that the play is capable of being performed in a compelling and nuanced fashion, but so that I don't come across as a total snob I'm going to try and refrain from referencing it in my thoughts on the STC's.
Ugh. Where to begin? This production was set in 1990's Yugoslavia, which immediately presents a difficulty since so much of the action of the play is driven by letters being intercepted or going astray. Lear's daughters can afford luscious fur coats but not land-line telephones? Questionable. A minor detail such as this could be forgiven in a stronger production, but when so many problems pile up it just gets added to a very long list.
My major complaint is that the production violated what should be the cardinal commandment of Shakespeare: Thou shalt not be boring. It draaaaaaaaagged through its three hours, devoid of any spark or energy that such a wonderfully complex play is capable of. I asked Gracie, if this was the way you were introduced to Shakespeare, would you want to see more? Her answer was "not really," and that cannot be excused from a company like the STC. You are placing yourself as a premiere company for Shakespeare performance,! You have a responsibility!
Furthermore (and I've ranted about this before), you are doing a straight-forward production. Okay, so you have lots of sex and violence and cars and white body bags (oh, we will get to those my friends). That doesn't mean you are being particularly creative, it just means you have a big budget and a poor editorial eye. It is my strongly held opinion that, if you are doing a traditional (in terms of story telling) production of any Shakespeare play, then you better damn well do a good job of it because you are not saying anything new. We already know that Lear is about war, and destruction and bad things happening to good, bad and generally neutral people. That can't be your "in." The "in" is making those things resonate in a way we haven't or didn't expect to feel, and this production did not do that. It rested on its body bags and oral sex and eye-frying and then gave itself a big ol' pat on the back for being cutting edge, without actually making any audience impact at all.
And it's Lear, for God's sake. It's all there for you! Sex, violence, madness, humor, disguises, war, betrayal, duplicity. Yes, it's a dense play and yes, it's one of the more difficult. In my mind, that doesn't give you a pass. I'm looking at YOU, Robert Falls. You decided to pick one of Shakespeare's most difficult plays, it was your job to live up to the material. You'll get no "A for efforts" from me.
And I'm not even sure what effort was put into this. Two years ago, I saw the Rupert Gould directed Tempest, which took place in the Arctic and featured a walrus, bear skins and Ariel as a trash-can-dwelling ice vampire. I did not like, but still respected Gould's vision because he had one, it was clear and he was committed. I may not have agreed with the world he created, but I saw where his choices came from and how they fit into his overall conception. Falls gets no such respect. His bloody Balkans setting may have been consistent, but his style was not. A choreographed dance after the storm scene? A random god-mic voice over for the last lines of the play? But it was a painfully overwrought 10-minute tribute to his props department's ability to make human figures out of bed sheets that broke me. Clearly wanting us to get the already obvious WAR IS BAD message, he broke what little momentum the second half had accumulated by having members of the ensemble stagger out and pile casualties around Glouscester. It. Took. Forever. And the booming Republican scare music only underlined how melodramatic and ridiculous the whole segment was. Just when I thought it had ended, and was getting over my disappointment that the figures were NOT positioned to spell out "Lear," two army nurses came out and began to, also exceedingly slowly, pitch the dummies into the large trap at the front of the stage. Memo to Falls: I GET IT.
Aaaaand another thing. Shocking moments aren't shocking if you don't give a fig about the people involved. You want to stuff Kent into tires, douse him with gasoline and light him on fire? Go right ahead. You want to pluck out Gloucester's eyes, fry them, and stuff them in his mouth? Eh, it probably won't taste good, but don't let that stop you. Oh, you want to rape your treacherous wife from behind? Okay, but use a condom; you don't know where she's been. To incite true horror or disgust or concern or any emotion about any of these things, you have to establish some kind of emotional connection. Otherwise it's just sadly obvious that you are trying to shock me as a bid for adding "edge" to your production.
The staging is clearly Falls' fault. The lack-luster performances...I don't know who to blame. I didn't feel anyone in the production committed to any kind of character narrative, so all interactions felt superficial at best, especially among the sisters. The moment with the most potential to be affecting was the deaths of Goneril and Regan, but it could have had a lot more punch if there had been a clearer relationship built up between them. As it stood, we only saw they were close at the beginning and not at the end, and that was pretty much the extent of any relationship. Points A and Z and nothing in between.
Keach's performance, I thought, only really got going when he lost his mind, and maybe that's because madness requires no real narrative and inherently prevents connection with those around you. Until the "reason not the need" scene, I felt like I was watching the Macy's Santa reciting Shakespeare quotes at an employee's holiday party. And he was the best! I enjoyed Jonno Roberts as Edmund as well, but that's because Edmund is a sexy part and I'm prone to like him, not because I thought the performance was particularly captivating.
*sigh* In general, the evening left me depressed. This is the best we can do? This? And everyone loves it? Loves it so much that they felt it had to be done again, as opposed to another production that might have said something about something?
And we wonder why Shakespeare is trouble.
First, a confession. Well, two confessions. The first is that, while I firmly believe Shakespeare is meant to be performed, I vastly prefer reading the tragedies to seeing them. They are very, very difficult to perform in a way that sustains interest, or so I am led to believe by the productions I have seen. Second confession is that I have seen less Shakespeare than I should at this point in my Shakespeare-loving career, and as a result this is only the second Lear I've encountered. The first was the superb and all around sublime RSC production with Ian McKellen. That production proved that the play is capable of being performed in a compelling and nuanced fashion, but so that I don't come across as a total snob I'm going to try and refrain from referencing it in my thoughts on the STC's.
Ugh. Where to begin? This production was set in 1990's Yugoslavia, which immediately presents a difficulty since so much of the action of the play is driven by letters being intercepted or going astray. Lear's daughters can afford luscious fur coats but not land-line telephones? Questionable. A minor detail such as this could be forgiven in a stronger production, but when so many problems pile up it just gets added to a very long list.
My major complaint is that the production violated what should be the cardinal commandment of Shakespeare: Thou shalt not be boring. It draaaaaaaaagged through its three hours, devoid of any spark or energy that such a wonderfully complex play is capable of. I asked Gracie, if this was the way you were introduced to Shakespeare, would you want to see more? Her answer was "not really," and that cannot be excused from a company like the STC. You are placing yourself as a premiere company for Shakespeare performance,! You have a responsibility!
Furthermore (and I've ranted about this before), you are doing a straight-forward production. Okay, so you have lots of sex and violence and cars and white body bags (oh, we will get to those my friends). That doesn't mean you are being particularly creative, it just means you have a big budget and a poor editorial eye. It is my strongly held opinion that, if you are doing a traditional (in terms of story telling) production of any Shakespeare play, then you better damn well do a good job of it because you are not saying anything new. We already know that Lear is about war, and destruction and bad things happening to good, bad and generally neutral people. That can't be your "in." The "in" is making those things resonate in a way we haven't or didn't expect to feel, and this production did not do that. It rested on its body bags and oral sex and eye-frying and then gave itself a big ol' pat on the back for being cutting edge, without actually making any audience impact at all.
And it's Lear, for God's sake. It's all there for you! Sex, violence, madness, humor, disguises, war, betrayal, duplicity. Yes, it's a dense play and yes, it's one of the more difficult. In my mind, that doesn't give you a pass. I'm looking at YOU, Robert Falls. You decided to pick one of Shakespeare's most difficult plays, it was your job to live up to the material. You'll get no "A for efforts" from me.
And I'm not even sure what effort was put into this. Two years ago, I saw the Rupert Gould directed Tempest, which took place in the Arctic and featured a walrus, bear skins and Ariel as a trash-can-dwelling ice vampire. I did not like, but still respected Gould's vision because he had one, it was clear and he was committed. I may not have agreed with the world he created, but I saw where his choices came from and how they fit into his overall conception. Falls gets no such respect. His bloody Balkans setting may have been consistent, but his style was not. A choreographed dance after the storm scene? A random god-mic voice over for the last lines of the play? But it was a painfully overwrought 10-minute tribute to his props department's ability to make human figures out of bed sheets that broke me. Clearly wanting us to get the already obvious WAR IS BAD message, he broke what little momentum the second half had accumulated by having members of the ensemble stagger out and pile casualties around Glouscester. It. Took. Forever. And the booming Republican scare music only underlined how melodramatic and ridiculous the whole segment was. Just when I thought it had ended, and was getting over my disappointment that the figures were NOT positioned to spell out "Lear," two army nurses came out and began to, also exceedingly slowly, pitch the dummies into the large trap at the front of the stage. Memo to Falls: I GET IT.
Aaaaand another thing. Shocking moments aren't shocking if you don't give a fig about the people involved. You want to stuff Kent into tires, douse him with gasoline and light him on fire? Go right ahead. You want to pluck out Gloucester's eyes, fry them, and stuff them in his mouth? Eh, it probably won't taste good, but don't let that stop you. Oh, you want to rape your treacherous wife from behind? Okay, but use a condom; you don't know where she's been. To incite true horror or disgust or concern or any emotion about any of these things, you have to establish some kind of emotional connection. Otherwise it's just sadly obvious that you are trying to shock me as a bid for adding "edge" to your production.
The staging is clearly Falls' fault. The lack-luster performances...I don't know who to blame. I didn't feel anyone in the production committed to any kind of character narrative, so all interactions felt superficial at best, especially among the sisters. The moment with the most potential to be affecting was the deaths of Goneril and Regan, but it could have had a lot more punch if there had been a clearer relationship built up between them. As it stood, we only saw they were close at the beginning and not at the end, and that was pretty much the extent of any relationship. Points A and Z and nothing in between.
Keach's performance, I thought, only really got going when he lost his mind, and maybe that's because madness requires no real narrative and inherently prevents connection with those around you. Until the "reason not the need" scene, I felt like I was watching the Macy's Santa reciting Shakespeare quotes at an employee's holiday party. And he was the best! I enjoyed Jonno Roberts as Edmund as well, but that's because Edmund is a sexy part and I'm prone to like him, not because I thought the performance was particularly captivating.
*sigh* In general, the evening left me depressed. This is the best we can do? This? And everyone loves it? Loves it so much that they felt it had to be done again, as opposed to another production that might have said something about something?
And we wonder why Shakespeare is trouble.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
I Read Vanity Fair So You Don't Have To (And Other Stories)
If this were a conversation, rather than a blog post, it would be continuously and spontaneously interrupted by my bursting out with random lyrics from Taylor Swift's 'Love Story' since that song is now inexplicably embedded in my brain. Luckily for you, it IS a blog post and I don't have the energy or investment to interject my thoughts with typed out lyrics. Consider yourselves blessed.
While Alec, and others of a higher intellectual capacity than myself, go to New Yorker for their high-falutin' magazine needs, I have developed a deep love for the one-rung-lower Vanity Fair. I've always had some sort of affection for the 'zine, mostly built around its stunning photographs of Hollywood stars and the true crime writings of Dominic Dunne, but I've recently found myself reading it cover to cover and enjoying every bit of it. The most recent issue is especially good, which is why I'm now going to indulge in a little recap and reflection.
What's a Culture Snob to Do? by James Wolcott Possibly my favorite article of the issue was the first one I read, a look by Wolcott at how the digitization of things like books and music is changing how we define ourselves and how we telegraph that definition to others. His first example is the New York City subway as travelling library, where you can judge those reading Twilight and simultaneously show off your Strand purchased copy of The Sound and the Fury (or whatever it is that passe for intellectual these days). An on-again-off-again New Yorker myself, I 100% understand where he's coming from. I often would take stock of my fellow passengers and their reading material while on the 6 and, yes, I also developed insta-crushes on any male in my age bracket caught reading something I deemed crush-worthy (which, if you know me, is almost anything...reading is sexy, guys, keep doing it). Seeing someone read a book you just finished or completely love, even if you don't talk, is a way of making an insta-connection in a city (and, increasingly, a world) where it's easy and acceptable to cut yourself off. Likewise, brandishing a tome of your own is a way of inviting conversation, albeit a somewhat passive aggressive way. It's putting a little bit of yourself out there, and I like that.
Wolcott goes on to examine music and DVDs. Here, again, I am guilty. Despite owning everything as an MP3, I try and eventually grab all of my music in hard copy form as well, mostly because I like the way they look and I like a scan of my music collection says about me as a person. In this case, it's less about conveying that message to others, since I don't think anyone (save my mother or my sister searching for a pilfered CD) has ever seen my music in its non-computerized form, but I like it. Ditto with DVDs. As egotistical as it is, I like surrounding myself with reflections of myself. In moments of doubt I can look around me and say "Well, I don't know what I'm doing with my life, but I do know I'm the kind of person who has both "The Royal Tenenbaums" AND "The Care Bears Movie," and so I think I'm doing okay." It's totally weird and doesn't make any difference in the long run, but I like it.
Which is Wolcott's point. What would give me that feeling if I didn't have these collections of things as touch stones? In myself? In some higher, more cerebral way would I still be able to define myself? They are interesting questions, and, having had only a few hours to process them, I don't have the answers yet. But I will enjoy puzzling.
No, Prime Minister by Christopher Hitchens A two-page sketch of the "Nixonian" monster British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has become. I admit, my Anglophilia has not quite gone so far as to absorb their politics (I'm only now engaging with ours on any real level), but it was illuminating insofar as that I had no idea he was so nutty.
Politico's Washington Coup by Michael Wolff Politico became my gold-standard website for election coverage last fall. I mourn the loss of the GOP/Dem blogs now that the campaigns are done, but I still check in occasionally to see what's going on down the street, so I enjoyed the look at how Politico both came and continues to be. The ultra-specific/ultra-general dichotomy between Politico and large media outlets like The Washington Post is interesting and makes me regret even more the failure of TIME magazine's experiment in personalized news (sadly, the name of that publication has already slipped my memory).
I worry about the death of print anything, in part because of the issue presented by Wolcott, but also because I just genuinely prefer words on a page rather than words on a screen. It was reassuring, then, to find out the Poltico website gave birth to the publication as opposed to vice-versa, but I still worry. The sheer immediacy is what makes the website and the blogosphere exciting, and, because of that immediacy, information is parsed out in bite-sized morsels. If you're working a temp job, that's invaluable for entertainment and time-killing reasons, but in the real world? Does that help or hurt? Not sure. Furthermore, the accusation that Politico feeds into insider-only atmosphere of Washington is valid. The campaign was different because everything led back to two (or four) main players, but now the site has become are more obtuse, for better or worse.
The Last Days of Heath by Bruce Weber I'm still upset by the death of Heath Ledger. Nothing in this article is really new or ground breaking, save maybe for further insight into his last movie, but it does remind you that we lost someone of incredible promise.
Of course, there's a part of me that questions why we still need to be talking about it, or why any celebrity's death garners the attention it gets. I didn't know this man in any way and any further discussion seems to border on voyeurism. As a co-worker of mine just pointed out RE: The Michael Jackson memorial, he was a talented guy, but what about the seven soldiers killed in Afghanistan yesterday? Why don't we hear about them? Why do I know Heath Ledger's massage schedule but not their names?
And yet, I read the article. So I guess there's the answer right there.
It Came From Wasilla by Todd S. Purdum This is it! The one! The profile of everyone's favorite bat-shit crazy wingnut pitbull in lipstick we've all been hearin' tell about, you betcha! And...I don't know that we learn anything new, though there was this delightful tidbit:
Also illuminating was the fact that she basically blew off any kind of interview or debate prep they attempted to give her and she basically doesn't seemed engaged with any issue whatsoever.
In case you haven't picked up on it, I am not a Palin fan. To speak truth, I loathe the woman. Loathe. The site of her brings with it a rising of bile and (occasionally) an audible sound of disgust mixed with strangled rage. Her nomination acceptance speech brought tears to my eyes that not only did I share citizenship with this woman, but I lived in country with people who thought her fantastic. If I ever wound up in the same room as her, I would have to leave. I see her as a real-live Dolores Umbridge only so much worse and it is my fervent prayer her stepping down from the governor's office means she she can crawl back into her polar-bear-pelt-lined cave of ignorance and self righteousness and never bother us again. But, alas, I fear it is not to be.
I often preach hearing out the other side and trying to see the best in people, but that woman drives me to a place no other being can.
...oh, but the article...yeah. It's good. Go read it.
//
And I haven't even gotten to my responses on Julia Child, the Tim Burton "Alice" photos or the 1930's film portfolio! Do you see why I love this magazine? It's fantastic.
There were also some musings on health care reform I was going to get into (I can sense your disappointment from here), but I feel I'm already pushing the limits of your patience and attention span. Best to quite while I'm only slightly behind. Besides, there's a whole three days more of temp job excitement. Can't waste all my insights now, can I?
Oh, and in case you were wondering...I did in fact finish I am Charlotte Simmons yesterday. It did nothing to change my overall feelings towards the book and only wound up irritating me more. It seemed Wolfe suffered from "I have to get this finished so I will wrap it up without any real detail" disease (much as I am doing now) and while I appreciated him giving her life some ambiguity, the whole thing was too nicely wrapped up to leave me satisfied.
So. That's that.
While Alec, and others of a higher intellectual capacity than myself, go to New Yorker for their high-falutin' magazine needs, I have developed a deep love for the one-rung-lower Vanity Fair. I've always had some sort of affection for the 'zine, mostly built around its stunning photographs of Hollywood stars and the true crime writings of Dominic Dunne, but I've recently found myself reading it cover to cover and enjoying every bit of it. The most recent issue is especially good, which is why I'm now going to indulge in a little recap and reflection.
What's a Culture Snob to Do? by James Wolcott Possibly my favorite article of the issue was the first one I read, a look by Wolcott at how the digitization of things like books and music is changing how we define ourselves and how we telegraph that definition to others. His first example is the New York City subway as travelling library, where you can judge those reading Twilight and simultaneously show off your Strand purchased copy of The Sound and the Fury (or whatever it is that passe for intellectual these days). An on-again-off-again New Yorker myself, I 100% understand where he's coming from. I often would take stock of my fellow passengers and their reading material while on the 6 and, yes, I also developed insta-crushes on any male in my age bracket caught reading something I deemed crush-worthy (which, if you know me, is almost anything...reading is sexy, guys, keep doing it). Seeing someone read a book you just finished or completely love, even if you don't talk, is a way of making an insta-connection in a city (and, increasingly, a world) where it's easy and acceptable to cut yourself off. Likewise, brandishing a tome of your own is a way of inviting conversation, albeit a somewhat passive aggressive way. It's putting a little bit of yourself out there, and I like that.
Wolcott goes on to examine music and DVDs. Here, again, I am guilty. Despite owning everything as an MP3, I try and eventually grab all of my music in hard copy form as well, mostly because I like the way they look and I like a scan of my music collection says about me as a person. In this case, it's less about conveying that message to others, since I don't think anyone (save my mother or my sister searching for a pilfered CD) has ever seen my music in its non-computerized form, but I like it. Ditto with DVDs. As egotistical as it is, I like surrounding myself with reflections of myself. In moments of doubt I can look around me and say "Well, I don't know what I'm doing with my life, but I do know I'm the kind of person who has both "The Royal Tenenbaums" AND "The Care Bears Movie," and so I think I'm doing okay." It's totally weird and doesn't make any difference in the long run, but I like it.
Which is Wolcott's point. What would give me that feeling if I didn't have these collections of things as touch stones? In myself? In some higher, more cerebral way would I still be able to define myself? They are interesting questions, and, having had only a few hours to process them, I don't have the answers yet. But I will enjoy puzzling.
No, Prime Minister by Christopher Hitchens A two-page sketch of the "Nixonian" monster British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has become. I admit, my Anglophilia has not quite gone so far as to absorb their politics (I'm only now engaging with ours on any real level), but it was illuminating insofar as that I had no idea he was so nutty.
Politico's Washington Coup by Michael Wolff Politico became my gold-standard website for election coverage last fall. I mourn the loss of the GOP/Dem blogs now that the campaigns are done, but I still check in occasionally to see what's going on down the street, so I enjoyed the look at how Politico both came and continues to be. The ultra-specific/ultra-general dichotomy between Politico and large media outlets like The Washington Post is interesting and makes me regret even more the failure of TIME magazine's experiment in personalized news (sadly, the name of that publication has already slipped my memory).
I worry about the death of print anything, in part because of the issue presented by Wolcott, but also because I just genuinely prefer words on a page rather than words on a screen. It was reassuring, then, to find out the Poltico website gave birth to the publication as opposed to vice-versa, but I still worry. The sheer immediacy is what makes the website and the blogosphere exciting, and, because of that immediacy, information is parsed out in bite-sized morsels. If you're working a temp job, that's invaluable for entertainment and time-killing reasons, but in the real world? Does that help or hurt? Not sure. Furthermore, the accusation that Politico feeds into insider-only atmosphere of Washington is valid. The campaign was different because everything led back to two (or four) main players, but now the site has become are more obtuse, for better or worse.
The Last Days of Heath by Bruce Weber I'm still upset by the death of Heath Ledger. Nothing in this article is really new or ground breaking, save maybe for further insight into his last movie, but it does remind you that we lost someone of incredible promise.
Of course, there's a part of me that questions why we still need to be talking about it, or why any celebrity's death garners the attention it gets. I didn't know this man in any way and any further discussion seems to border on voyeurism. As a co-worker of mine just pointed out RE: The Michael Jackson memorial, he was a talented guy, but what about the seven soldiers killed in Afghanistan yesterday? Why don't we hear about them? Why do I know Heath Ledger's massage schedule but not their names?
And yet, I read the article. So I guess there's the answer right there.
It Came From Wasilla by Todd S. Purdum This is it! The one! The profile of everyone's favorite bat-shit crazy wingnut pitbull in lipstick we've all been hearin' tell about, you betcha! And...I don't know that we learn anything new, though there was this delightful tidbit:
More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting,
the question of Palin's extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently
of one another, that they had consulted the definition of "narcissistic
personality disorder' in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental
Disorders...and thought it fit her perfectly.When Trig was born, Palin
wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of
her pregnancy and detailing Trig's condition; she wrote the -mail not in her her
own name, but in God's, and signed it "Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father."
Also illuminating was the fact that she basically blew off any kind of interview or debate prep they attempted to give her and she basically doesn't seemed engaged with any issue whatsoever.
In case you haven't picked up on it, I am not a Palin fan. To speak truth, I loathe the woman. Loathe. The site of her brings with it a rising of bile and (occasionally) an audible sound of disgust mixed with strangled rage. Her nomination acceptance speech brought tears to my eyes that not only did I share citizenship with this woman, but I lived in country with people who thought her fantastic. If I ever wound up in the same room as her, I would have to leave. I see her as a real-live Dolores Umbridge only so much worse and it is my fervent prayer her stepping down from the governor's office means she she can crawl back into her polar-bear-pelt-lined cave of ignorance and self righteousness and never bother us again. But, alas, I fear it is not to be.
I often preach hearing out the other side and trying to see the best in people, but that woman drives me to a place no other being can.
...oh, but the article...yeah. It's good. Go read it.
//
And I haven't even gotten to my responses on Julia Child, the Tim Burton "Alice" photos or the 1930's film portfolio! Do you see why I love this magazine? It's fantastic.
There were also some musings on health care reform I was going to get into (I can sense your disappointment from here), but I feel I'm already pushing the limits of your patience and attention span. Best to quite while I'm only slightly behind. Besides, there's a whole three days more of temp job excitement. Can't waste all my insights now, can I?
Oh, and in case you were wondering...I did in fact finish I am Charlotte Simmons yesterday. It did nothing to change my overall feelings towards the book and only wound up irritating me more. It seemed Wolfe suffered from "I have to get this finished so I will wrap it up without any real detail" disease (much as I am doing now) and while I appreciated him giving her life some ambiguity, the whole thing was too nicely wrapped up to leave me satisfied.
So. That's that.
Monday, July 6, 2009
I am NOT Charlotte Simmons
I am currently about 5/7 through the enormous Tom Wolfe tome that is I am Charlotte Simmons, and while it is probably more...journalistically acceptable? to wait until I've finished the whole thing before writing my thoughts on it, I'm too impatient and my reactions are too strong. Which is, I guess, a good thing, this eliciting of strong response, but I'm not sure that's enough to calling it a good book. Because despite being highly readable, I also find it loathsome in many ways.
These two ways can be divided into the micro and the macro, so we'll start with the micro first: the actual character of Charlotte Simmons.
For those of you who don't know the book (it came out four years ago t much media attention, but I'm unsure how much it actually entered the collective consciousness), it tells the story of young Charlotte Simmons from the little mountain town of Sparta, North Carolina, coming to the prestigious (and fictitious) Ivy League Dupont University for her freshmen year of college. While the story focuses on Charlotte, we also follow tangentially a frat boy named Hoyt, a basketball player named Jojo and a brainiac named Adam. That's really all you need know.
Back to Charlotte. She, just like the book, bothers me on both a micro and macro level and, like my overall thoughts on the book, we'll start with the micro here, too. Wolfe, it seems, gave Charlotte a (population: 900) small town background so as to distance her as much as possible from the version of her generation she encounters at Dupont. This is probably smart from an authorial stand point because Tom Wolfe is a 70-something white man and also far outside the universe of the 20-something collegiate, so Charlotte's own discomfort and unfamiliarity can parallel his own and give him a way in. Fine. And, I have to say, I don't think that he does a bad job with it. Charlotte is obnoxious, to be sure, but that doesn't make her necessarily untrue. ..to a point.
Besides being small-town and gorgeous (and we'll address this later), Charlotte is also supposed to be a genius and former high school track star. These two things make the level of her naivete, in my mind, completely implausible because they take away the security blanket of small-town sheltering. We see through the book that, yes, she really is a genius. She knows pretty much everything about everything and has huge exposure to the world in terms of books. This shouldn't give her social skills, but it should give her the awareness that people are somewhat rough and tumble. And as for the track thing, it means she's been in contact with other teenagers, other high schools. That doesn't mean she shouldn't be overwhelmed by college life, but having a minor internal freak out because her roommate says the word "shit"? Really? You're telling me that four years of high school, during which she routinely was around other high schools (and therefore, other teenagers with varied upbringings) she never heard the word "shit"? I find that hard to believe. It's that level of doe-eyed innocence we're talking about, and I don't quite buy it.
Now before I get into the macro, I want to point out that I am sure most or all of what I'm about to say can be said about guys as well. I'm not trying to take up the "media expectations" banner for females alone. It's just that a) I am a girl and b) I'm particularly concerned about the female character (if I start writing about the males in the book, I'll wind up with a book of my own). So understand that all that is about to follow is written about girls, but not with the assumption that you guys don't deal with it, too. Okay? okay. The macro.
Charlotte, as previously mentioned, is supposed to be gorgeous. Fine, I can live with that. Why we can't have an average girl as a heroine, I don't know. Why we can't even have just a pretty girl instead of model-beautiful is also beyond me, but I guess it makes for good copy. But there are, according to this book, lots of model-beautiful girls on campus and certainly many, many attractive ones. And I'm guessing that, in this fictional world, a lot of those girls have vastly superior social skills to those of our Ms. Simmons, not to mention a better fashion sense (the Prairie-Home-Companion nature of her outfits is commented on repeatedly). So why why WHY does every single guy she meets fall for her? I get that a gorgeous girl, even one awkward and poorly dressed, can attract attention, but inspiring full-on pursuit? Fights? I don't buy that. I hate this idea of "the" girl, the one that everyone wants and has to have in some way and will stop at nothing to get. I accept those girls exist, but I don't accept that Charlotte Simmons is that kind of girl. She is prissy and self-righteous and awkward and whatever charms her "innocence" has is not enough, in my opinion, to overcome the impatience it seems anyone who meets her must eventually feel. And I could buy the one frat brother looking on her as a challenge, or a game, but not everyone she ever meets possessing a Y-chromosome. That's not real, not in the way Wolfe is presenting it.
And that's what bothers me. We hear a lot about the pressure put on girls to look a certain way by the media, and I think it's there, though I also think male reaction to the media is really what drives it home. Making Charlotte gorgeous feeds into this because it seems the only reason any guy wants her, really, is her looks, which serves the double purpose of saying a) guys will want you if you're hot and b) being hot excuses a multitude of personality flaws. Neither of which I like, but neither of which bother me as much as her personality, which is presented as somehow being attractive as well. She's annoying, she's obnoxious, she's self-righteous, painfully (neigh, stupidly) naive and she's weak-willed. Yet somehow, this is attractive? This is what I should want to be, because even though I hate it, the guys eat it up? Or this is what I can be, if only I'm really really hot? Either way, I hate the implication.
I was going to go on about the personality pressures put on girls, but I'm running out of steam and I haven't even gotten to why the book really bothers me. So, onto that.
As I think I mentioned, I'm finding the book highly readable. It's almost 700 pages and I've been blowing through it and, for all of my issues with the main character, I haven't been tempted to throw it across the room like with the Twilight series (no judgments, it was a cultural phenomenon, I had to stay up-to-date). And, I have to say, save for the aforementioned (I love that word) qualms about the plausibility of Charlotte herself, I find a lot of it to be quite accurate, save for one thing: the inevitability of it all. There is a driving sense that this is what happens at college, period, the end, no discussion. If you are 18 and female and going into freshmen year, you will become a tragic example of peer pressure gone awry, unless you instead become a slut or a militant loser. As for you boys, you will either be hot and have shit-for-brains and stone-for-heart OR be average looking and capable of having a conversation. There is no other alternative. And don't even think about doing homework or caring about anything besides getting laid or getting revenge on the guys that picked on you because you will be ridiculed and destroyed.
We are not like that, not all of us, and I absolutely resent the implication otherwise. That there is no other alternative, that this is how it is. My generation has more to offer than that. There's drinking, there's sex, but the pursuit of one or both doesn't come at the exclusion of everything else. We work for things, we care about things, we make connections based more on looks and one-upmanship, and that Wolfe doesn't show even an ounce of that is infuriating to me. When this books came out there was a lot of emphasis placed on how this is what was really going on on campuses these days. This i what your son or daughter was really up to, this was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And yes, it is true, but it's not the whole truth and it's not the last word, and I feel especially coming from an author such as Tom Wolfe it does get this aura of credibility and infallibility it just doesn't deserve. We are worth more than this book implies! The destruction of our souls, morals and ambitions is not inevitably linked with that college acceptance letter!
I'm sure there's more I want to say on this subject, but I'll let it rest for now. Have any of you read this book? Do you have thoughts? Am I totally overreacting, as I am wont to do? Talk me down.
These two ways can be divided into the micro and the macro, so we'll start with the micro first: the actual character of Charlotte Simmons.
For those of you who don't know the book (it came out four years ago t much media attention, but I'm unsure how much it actually entered the collective consciousness), it tells the story of young Charlotte Simmons from the little mountain town of Sparta, North Carolina, coming to the prestigious (and fictitious) Ivy League Dupont University for her freshmen year of college. While the story focuses on Charlotte, we also follow tangentially a frat boy named Hoyt, a basketball player named Jojo and a brainiac named Adam. That's really all you need know.
Back to Charlotte. She, just like the book, bothers me on both a micro and macro level and, like my overall thoughts on the book, we'll start with the micro here, too. Wolfe, it seems, gave Charlotte a (population: 900) small town background so as to distance her as much as possible from the version of her generation she encounters at Dupont. This is probably smart from an authorial stand point because Tom Wolfe is a 70-something white man and also far outside the universe of the 20-something collegiate, so Charlotte's own discomfort and unfamiliarity can parallel his own and give him a way in. Fine. And, I have to say, I don't think that he does a bad job with it. Charlotte is obnoxious, to be sure, but that doesn't make her necessarily untrue. ..to a point.
Besides being small-town and gorgeous (and we'll address this later), Charlotte is also supposed to be a genius and former high school track star. These two things make the level of her naivete, in my mind, completely implausible because they take away the security blanket of small-town sheltering. We see through the book that, yes, she really is a genius. She knows pretty much everything about everything and has huge exposure to the world in terms of books. This shouldn't give her social skills, but it should give her the awareness that people are somewhat rough and tumble. And as for the track thing, it means she's been in contact with other teenagers, other high schools. That doesn't mean she shouldn't be overwhelmed by college life, but having a minor internal freak out because her roommate says the word "shit"? Really? You're telling me that four years of high school, during which she routinely was around other high schools (and therefore, other teenagers with varied upbringings) she never heard the word "shit"? I find that hard to believe. It's that level of doe-eyed innocence we're talking about, and I don't quite buy it.
Now before I get into the macro, I want to point out that I am sure most or all of what I'm about to say can be said about guys as well. I'm not trying to take up the "media expectations" banner for females alone. It's just that a) I am a girl and b) I'm particularly concerned about the female character (if I start writing about the males in the book, I'll wind up with a book of my own). So understand that all that is about to follow is written about girls, but not with the assumption that you guys don't deal with it, too. Okay? okay. The macro.
Charlotte, as previously mentioned, is supposed to be gorgeous. Fine, I can live with that. Why we can't have an average girl as a heroine, I don't know. Why we can't even have just a pretty girl instead of model-beautiful is also beyond me, but I guess it makes for good copy. But there are, according to this book, lots of model-beautiful girls on campus and certainly many, many attractive ones. And I'm guessing that, in this fictional world, a lot of those girls have vastly superior social skills to those of our Ms. Simmons, not to mention a better fashion sense (the Prairie-Home-Companion nature of her outfits is commented on repeatedly). So why why WHY does every single guy she meets fall for her? I get that a gorgeous girl, even one awkward and poorly dressed, can attract attention, but inspiring full-on pursuit? Fights? I don't buy that. I hate this idea of "the" girl, the one that everyone wants and has to have in some way and will stop at nothing to get. I accept those girls exist, but I don't accept that Charlotte Simmons is that kind of girl. She is prissy and self-righteous and awkward and whatever charms her "innocence" has is not enough, in my opinion, to overcome the impatience it seems anyone who meets her must eventually feel. And I could buy the one frat brother looking on her as a challenge, or a game, but not everyone she ever meets possessing a Y-chromosome. That's not real, not in the way Wolfe is presenting it.
And that's what bothers me. We hear a lot about the pressure put on girls to look a certain way by the media, and I think it's there, though I also think male reaction to the media is really what drives it home. Making Charlotte gorgeous feeds into this because it seems the only reason any guy wants her, really, is her looks, which serves the double purpose of saying a) guys will want you if you're hot and b) being hot excuses a multitude of personality flaws. Neither of which I like, but neither of which bother me as much as her personality, which is presented as somehow being attractive as well. She's annoying, she's obnoxious, she's self-righteous, painfully (neigh, stupidly) naive and she's weak-willed. Yet somehow, this is attractive? This is what I should want to be, because even though I hate it, the guys eat it up? Or this is what I can be, if only I'm really really hot? Either way, I hate the implication.
I was going to go on about the personality pressures put on girls, but I'm running out of steam and I haven't even gotten to why the book really bothers me. So, onto that.
As I think I mentioned, I'm finding the book highly readable. It's almost 700 pages and I've been blowing through it and, for all of my issues with the main character, I haven't been tempted to throw it across the room like with the Twilight series (no judgments, it was a cultural phenomenon, I had to stay up-to-date). And, I have to say, save for the aforementioned (I love that word) qualms about the plausibility of Charlotte herself, I find a lot of it to be quite accurate, save for one thing: the inevitability of it all. There is a driving sense that this is what happens at college, period, the end, no discussion. If you are 18 and female and going into freshmen year, you will become a tragic example of peer pressure gone awry, unless you instead become a slut or a militant loser. As for you boys, you will either be hot and have shit-for-brains and stone-for-heart OR be average looking and capable of having a conversation. There is no other alternative. And don't even think about doing homework or caring about anything besides getting laid or getting revenge on the guys that picked on you because you will be ridiculed and destroyed.
We are not like that, not all of us, and I absolutely resent the implication otherwise. That there is no other alternative, that this is how it is. My generation has more to offer than that. There's drinking, there's sex, but the pursuit of one or both doesn't come at the exclusion of everything else. We work for things, we care about things, we make connections based more on looks and one-upmanship, and that Wolfe doesn't show even an ounce of that is infuriating to me. When this books came out there was a lot of emphasis placed on how this is what was really going on on campuses these days. This i what your son or daughter was really up to, this was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And yes, it is true, but it's not the whole truth and it's not the last word, and I feel especially coming from an author such as Tom Wolfe it does get this aura of credibility and infallibility it just doesn't deserve. We are worth more than this book implies! The destruction of our souls, morals and ambitions is not inevitably linked with that college acceptance letter!
I'm sure there's more I want to say on this subject, but I'll let it rest for now. Have any of you read this book? Do you have thoughts? Am I totally overreacting, as I am wont to do? Talk me down.
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