Sacha Jones's Blog, page 18

Woman on a train

So Emily Blunt is not pregnant in her latest film, The Girl on the Train , and that is where her problems start, at least ostensibly. And I guess if you could look this good pregnant you would feel bad if it didn't happen for you (we all look beautiful pregnant, I know, but it helps to be tall).

But, according to Time film critic Stephanie Zacharek 'the sad thing' about this film, and Blunt's role in it, is not that she fails to fall pregnant and, as a result, becomes a sad tormented alcoholic with paranoid delusions and fantasies about people she sees from the train, but that she is not 'bad' enough.

According to Stephanie Zacharek, the film is spoiled by a society 'trying to be progressive' and in that effort, not allowing 'classic bag girls' to be portrayed on film anymore.

For Zacharek, this failing is a sign of a feminism gone wrong as, she says, it paints women as flimsy creatures who 'are not wholly responsible for their behaviour.'

Is anyone wholly responsible for their behaviour?

This strikes me as distinctly unhelpful commentary in a world that continues to struggle with the basic idea of feminism: namely, that women's lives have been, and continue to be, constrained on every level by men, often through violence, and that one of the most powerful weapons that men have used to sustain this oppression, is to blame women for the violence inflicted upon them, from rape to domestic homicide. Courts have upheld this reasoning and the real life violence of men has continued unpunished.

A more helpful and interesting review of this film that I found intriguing, if a little disjointed in the first half, comes from Eileen G'Sell (strange name) who compares it with Fatal Attraction, a film that presumably would qualify for Zacharek's 'classic bad girl' acclaim.

G'Sell calls her review 'the rise of the sane angry woman' and says that after decades of portraying psychotic angry women, Hollywood has finally sided with female rage in this film, to take the woman's perspective, for a change, instead of the man's.

She mentions, too, that Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction took the part understanding that her character kills herself in the end, but when preview audiences weren't responding and they changed the ending to make her proper psychotic and homicidal to be finally killed by Douglas -- a box office smash -- she was not at all happy about this change. She knew that it undermined the integrity and truth of her character and sold out women. She was not wrong.

The change might have done wonders for her career, but still she would rather not have had to sink to reproducing the stereotype that perpetuates the myth that women are psychotic and often ask for the violence committed against them.

That was the 80s. If you believe Zacharek, we have degenerated as a society since them in 'trying to be progressive' and failing. I'll agree we are trying today, some of us. But some, like Close, were trying back then, and others, like Gloria Steinem, were trying back in the 60s, and many others were trying much further back than that still. We will always be trying, some of us.

And Zacharek wouldn't have the job she has -- Time's first female film critic? -- if some of these triers hadn't succeeded in making society more progressive and gender equal, too.

But more would succeed, there is no doubt, if there weren't so many -- women, like Zacharek included -- determined to fight against this progress by mocking the efforts, often of women, as in the case of this film, to present more realistic and substantial women on screen, and more realistic men, too, not the Michael Douglas of Fatal Attraction who is pushed to kill Close by her psychotic jealousy.

To read any serious study about the real life violence between men and women in relationships, is to know that the psychotic, and all too often homicidal jealousy of men -- not women -- is the single biggest factor driving the abuse that destroys millions of families (one in three), the world over.

So, well done to the women involved with The Girl on the Train for giving us a slightly more realistic glimpse into this sad reality, and to Emily Blunt for bringing the main character, a real woman, to life with so much feeling and depth. This is progress indeed.



 

RAW reprisal: The age edge

Okay. So this is not me. I don't do nail polish (I don't have any nails). But it's a little bit me. She ( Viv Groskop ) has the age edge too, only not so much (she's 43).

Earlier this week I took the plunge, polished up the wrinkles and put away the pride to do my first stand-up gig at the Classic Comedy club in Auckland. It went surprisingly well.

I was the oldest stand-up of ten performing and the only first timer, which is not an ideal equation for a person of the female persuasion, especially. I was even older than the MC, a seasoned comic with twenty years stand-up experience.

But... turns out, age gives you an edge as a comic because everyone else who thinks they're old, namely all comics over the age of 24, have to pack up their getting-old jokes and think again when they see me arrive. It's quite funny to watch.

Anyway. I didn't do any 'getting-old' jokes because I didn't have to; it was all implied. I talked about John Locke and my husband's penis instead -- admittedly, two quite old things.  



 

From Dickens to Dicks

Yesterday, I happened to read two statements by famous men on the subject of women. The first was: 'I am sure I don't know why "a great girl" should be a term of reproach, for every rightly constituted male mind loves 'em great and small.'

That was written in 1857 by Charles Dickens (45) in his eleventh book Little Dorrit, which I am currently reading for the first time, better late than never.

The second was: 'Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.'

That was a recorded statement, published yesterday in the Washington Post, made in 2005 by the 2016 Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump (59), bragging to a TV host about how being famous allows him to do virtually anything he wants to any woman he meets, without sanction.

In both statements women are objectified as 'them' or "'em", and both comments are spoken during conversations between two men. But there the similarities end.

For Dickens, women are objectified in order for his humble, honest character, a prison turnkey, to question this objectification through usage of the term 'a great girl' as a put down reference for men who get emotional: '...makes me take out my pocket-handkerchief like a great girl, as people say...', says this humble character within the prison walls.

In 1857 this would have been progressive social commentary and a reflection, too, of Dickens' own maturing gender consciousness and critique that was not so evident in his earlier books.

That this kind of gender critique has clearly been ignored, as we still, 159 years on, put women down by telling boys and men they're acting 'like a girl' or 'a big girl' when they are showing emotion; indeed, ironically, when they're being human and decent, rather than woman-mocking bullies and dicks, shows that most men never mature beyond seeing girls and women as silly, and men as silly if they behave 'like girls'.

In truth, boys and men continue to put women down as silly and easily used in order not to feel so intimidated by them, as Trump still clearly is at 59 when he has to brag about the women he can do anything to and not be punished for. In the video of what happens after this brag, when he meets the woman he said he might kiss or grope, Trump is clearly intimidated and uncomfortable around her and not at all in a position to do what he wants to her. Instead, her beauty overwhelms him (she is much younger than him, of course), as well as the TV host he had been bragging to, and instead of groping and disrespecting her they both vie for her approval.

The 'rightly constituted male mind' is supposed to love womankind, for the species to prosper, not mock, objectify and dominate us. Boyish fear of women lasting into manhood is at the root of the misogynist mockery Trump and so many other modern men are guilty of, and a humble male maturity in recognising the goodness and value of women, is at the heart of Dickens' rarely expressed sentiment, then or now.

If only Trump was the man of old and Dickens were the man of today, we'd be heading in the right direction. As it stands, it would appear we're running backwards at a pace.

 

 

The 9th man

In the fifth season of Veep, my preferred go-to for political insight these days, someone suggests an all-female ticket for President and VP, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus replies: 'You can't have two women! That'd break the universe'. So we get Hugh Laurie instead, and he's not even American.

Tears of injustice in 1998 from Helen Clark, when local Maori excluded her, as
leader of the Labour Party, from speaking on the Marae for NZ's national day,
because she is a woman. And so, with Helen Clark's failed bid for UN Secretary General today and the appointment of yet another man to that job for the next 4-8 yrs, the universe is once more saved.

Indeed I can't help thinking that the appointment of the 9th man in a row to lead the institution that is most directly set up to improve the lives of all the world's people -- HALF OF WHICH ARE FEMALE -- and expressly to reduce global conflict between nations, something that men have proven to be slightly crap at since the beginning of time, was influenced in some part by the prospect of a female president of the US, which made voters for the top UN job, who may or may not watch Veep, apply the same top-notch reasoning of saying we can't have two women in such powerful positions, we might break the universe.

There were ten men and one (token) woman in the group that made the announcement, which is a little bit of a clue to the real reason why Clark, as well as the many other very qualified women bidding for the job, was probably never in the running.

The only upside is that institutionalised misogyny is further exposed to show us how it is that men have held power all these years, nothing to do with their professed natural ability to lead, but a banal boy's club mentality of sticking together across religions, races and nations to oppose and put down women, above all else.

Apparently the guy who got the job was seen as a 'warmer' character than Clark. Yeah, right. And Trump is 'warmer' than Clinton, I suppose. He is quite orange, like the sun. Men in general, let's face it, are warmer than women. Why else would we have global warming? It all makes perfect sense. Leave it to men to explain all things and make sure the universe remains intact.


   

The RAW boat

Urzila Carlson : Comedy's hostess with the mostess.So last night we went, for the first time, to RAW, the Classic Comedy club 's Monday night session for new stand-up comedians.

It was a fantastic night, hosted hilariously by ex-pat South African Urzila Carlson, who blamed us for her weight issues on account of us all spending so much time and money trying to save (feed) starving Africans, among her many other amusing themes.

I had been thinking of giving RAW a go myself, for my sins, but as the other stand-ups last night were so good, I am thinking again. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.

Perhaps I would rather devote my time to saving starving Africans instead; if it makes the world a funnier place then that seems worthwhile. Alternatively, there's always the firing squad, a comparatively painless option.

In fact, I found out last night (always the last to know) that the RAW sessions officially finished last week in preparation for a 'best of Winter's RAW' event next Saturday, and so some of the comedians last night were likely not raw raw, but prepping for that gig. Perhaps some were even auditioning for a place on the best of RAW night.

So it looks like I've missed the RAW boat anyway and might as well cut my losses and join a bridge club, another hobby I've been considering. Bridge isn't funny, so much, but it does make constructive use of the word 'trump', which is not so easy to do these days.

I'll keep you posted.

For now, the cat's at my door wanting some more raw beef. It was the first thing I touched this morning, raw beef -- the cat likes her raw beef hand shredded not sliced -- and she can probably smell it on my hands, the closest I'm going to get to RAW for the foreseeable future, I fear.    

The nuclear button

I really didn't want to dignify the US presidential race by blogging on it (because my blog brings such dignity to a subject), as I simply can't take Trump seriously enough as a person, let alone as a presidential candidate, to bother.

But today I read an interesting article in an historically pro-republican publication that asked the pertinent question, among others, 'Whose hand do you want on the nuclear button?' and answered it in favour of Hillary, and I thought, well maybe that's worth blogging about.

Because really, for those who have even the slightest doubt about which of these candidates is more fit for president, that question is the only one you need to ask. To give Donald Trump access to a button that would start a nuclear war and probably spell the end of the entire fucking world, even if it would in the process put an end to Donald Trump, has got to be a bad move. They probably don't get any badder, in fact.

So if you have any doubts (and I know my good readers don't, but you might know someone who knows someone who knows someone who does and pass it on), read this article and consider this one single question: If you had a button that could, and probably would, if pressed, destroy the entire world, would you put it within reach of a petulant child? Probably not. You'd slap on a 'keep out of reach of children' sticker and store it on the highest shelf that only the most grown up of the grownups could reach. And that would be Hillary Clinton, who is much taller than she looks, indeed.

Kids on a plane

All you have to do is enter 'bran' and it comes up, the news story of the moment that is overshadowing the Trump tornado, the ongoing shit storm in Syria and, most incredibly, Jennifer Aniston's latest phantom pregnancy. Bran has never been so big.

The story I am referring to is of course the announced breakup of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (recently Jolie Pitt), otherwise known as Branjelina, hence bran's media moment.

And according to the latest media release -- not necessarily the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but still -- the Hollywood super couple and parents of the millennium came to this sorry impasse on a plane when Pitt allegedly "lunged" at the oldest of his multinational brood of six, the slightly unfortunately named Madd ox.

Now, I don't want to make light of dads that lunge at their kids, much less drunk dads that lunge, as Pitt allegedly was at the time, nor do I want to shift the blame for said lunging onto the kids, but... I will say, speaking from experience, that flying with children is a challenge, with or without, but really with is better for the parent/worse for the child, alcohol in the mix.

That said, I've never flown on a private jet with my kids, a flying experience that I would imagine to be slightly less like the snakes on a plane scenario that I have experienced flying coach with my kids. But then again, the private jet experience would also afford more room for lunging, so that if one was inclined to lunge, that could indeed make the kids on a plane situation worse.

It's all so relative.

But, not so relative, is the number of kids you take with you on a plane, private or otherwise, and in the Branjelina case, that number was six. I have only ever flown with three. Double that number and, well, all said and done, you'd probably be better off with snakes. Snakes, after all, are silent.

Still, just as we can blame Hollywood for the snakes on a plane scenario, I feel this sorry situation with Branjelina, who really did seem to be a happily married couple making it work against the odds of a wildly unreal, overtly public relationship and life, can be hurled at the feet of Hollywood and not so much at Brad's lunging feet or, much less, at Anjelina's desire for the pitter-patter of a multitude of multinational little feet that some media (Chelsea Handler, I'm looking at you, girl!) have blamed for the split.

The fact that they met on a film where they were required to simulate (express) intense sexual attraction, while one of them was married in 'real' life, was probably not the healthiest of beginnings. That they made it work for 12 years is commendable and something of a celebrity couple record, I think.

So good luck to them both, and to their multifarious brood, I hope they all survive their Hollywood break-up without too much blood and drama. To this end, I would recommend no more plane travel for a while. Take the kids to the zoo instead, that's the best place for snakes, too.  

   

Thank you, feminism

'You should resign!'
Warren's take down of banking CEO John StumpfThere's a lot of misunderstanding and deliberate misrepresentation of what feminism is and is for. So I thought I'd highlight this woman, US senator Elizabeth Warren , and her courageous battle ongoing against Wall St corruption, as a good example of feminism at work.

Wall St is not all macho male greed and corruption, the kind that has screwed the world for thousands of years, it's just overwhelmingly macho male greed and corruption, and Elisabeth Warren is one of the few people of influence who is confronting and exposing this greed and corruption that has continued unabated since the global economic collapse of 2008 that it caused.

Without feminism, Warren would not be in the senate, and without Warren, as history attests, this battle to expose and end the obscene greed, corruption and unaccountability of the 'big' men at the big banks, would continue and increase.

Feminism, as feminists have long argued, stands to benefit everyone; it just relies on the most courageous women, like Elisabeth Warren, being allowed access to real power to prove it.

So thank you to the feminists who fought for this access, and thank you to Elisabeth Warren who proves that the fight for women's right to speak and be heard at the highest level is a fight, if not the fight, worth fighting for.  And we still have a long way to go; look at the senate chamber in which Warren works.

I see, you see, we all see Chelsea!

Before tuning in to  Chelsea Handler's Netflix series I'd last seen her stand-up show (2013?) in which she produced a billboard-sized photo of three old men giving each other a simultaneous blow job, don't quite know how that's possible but she -- and they -- did it.

I decided I couldn't quite handle the Handler after that, having been a casual fan for some years prior and read a couple of her books, not that I've got anything against blow jobs or the elderly, but I'd just rather not have to see those two things in the same sentence or image. Sorry.

But then we (Moose and I) tuned into her first series with Netflix, the four-part  Chelsea Does , and were back into Chelsea with a bang. It was fantastic, the freshest show of its sort we'd seen in a long, long time.

Her Netflix talk show which followed it, Chelsea, Netflix's first talk show indeed, is not as good as Chelsea Does, but it's still well worth watching and it's getting better all the time.

She's such a natural talker, she doesn't suffer fools or bullshitters, she's quick witted, interested in all people, often hilarious and easy on the eye without having to try too hard. Oh, and she can't stand Trump and doesn't mind who she tells about it. What's not to like?

It also ticks the feminist box for being one of the few mainstream, not daytime talk shows, hosted by a woman, which means sexism is one of the subjects up for discussion rather than systematically sidelined or ignored entirely. Even though men are fundamentally involved, few men have the balls to discuss it, which basically means they're sexist too. Silence on sexism in a sexist world is sexist. I think I might just have come up with a catchy slogan.

Chelsea is not a classic feminist and she has had to warm to Hillary after initial disdain and distrust, but she has warmed considerably, and genuinely, and her feminism continues to be honed on the show. The last episode we watched she told men to stop telling women to smile in response to some dude telling Hillary Clinton on Twitter to smile more.

In the episode I linked the series to here, she and Sarah Silverman reclaim the word cunt for women to use to tell each other what wonderful cunts we are.

And on that note I'll sign off, from one wonderful cunt to all you other wonderful cunts -- men against cunt-haters included.  
 

Excessive clenching

So this is me at night, in bed, when I'm supposed to be at rest, if the dentist I've just been to see is to be believed.

'Excessive clenching' he calls it, and it's not terribly good for me, apparently.

Indeed it explains why my teeth and general mouth area hurt, and possibly why I have to take horse tranquillisers to sleep.

Either that, or the the horse tranquillisers are the reason for the excessive clenching and general mouth pain. It's difficult to say with horses.

But one way or another, I've got a problem -- another one -- that neither the dentist nor the doctor who prescribed the tranquillisers seem to be able to fix.

And there's more...

It also seems I'm closing my teeth too often when awake. The dentist asked me how many times I close my teeth of a day and I had to think. How many times do I close my teeth? It was a good question.

I couldn't really give a clear answer, so he told me: too many times, that's how many. Apparently you're only supposed to close them three times a day. Three.

So there's room for improvement there, which is good. I'm not closing my teeth as we speak.

At the end of the consultation and immensely enjoyable teeth-cleaning procedure, while chatting casually about my excessive clenching over my x-rays, taken previously while the dentist and his assistant were out of the room, he says 'Hang on. We'll need to take another x-ray.'

And so, after they set that up and leave the room again, it's discovered that I do in fact have a hole in my tooth that could, just could, explain the pain in my mouth, over and above the clenching.

As my time had expired discussing the excessive clenching, I had to make another appointment to get the filling.

It's enough to make a girl close her teeth, really it is.