Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 478

Hannah Horvath versus Walter White: Sometimes it has nothing to do with sex.

If you don’t watch Breaking Bad and Girls, this post will probably be a little too inside baseball for you, but I can’t help but respond to a tweet I saw earlier this week (when I blog was down) by writer Jessica Grose.

She tweeted:

Thinking about how way more people talk about how “awful” Hannah Horvath is than how awful Walter White is, despite his body count and meth

I can’t get over how short sighted this sentiment is.

The difference between Walter White and Hannah Horvath could not be more stark.

Walter White is a meth cook and a murderer, but when we meet Walter White, he is a chemistry teacher dying of cancer who engages in his illegal trade in order to keep his family solvent upon his death. Throughout the series, he proves himself to be a loyal friend, a trustworthy business partner, a dedicated husband, a loving father, a hard worker and an incredibly brave man.

Yes, he is producing a substance that ruins people’s lives, and yes, he is responsible for the deaths of a handful of people (all bad guys), but his motivations are as pure as the drug that he sells.

We are supposed to like Walter White. The viewer can’t help but root for him. He is unselfish, courageous, resourceful and honorable. We like Walter White because he is a good bad guy. He is an anti-superhero. He is a man who has not allowed his circumstances to dictate his fate.

When we meet Hannah Horvath, we learn that she has been living off her parents’ credit card for her entire life and has made no honest attempt to earn a living on her own. She claims to be pursuing a writing career, but the viewer quickly learns that she had made no serious effort in this regard. She is the classic example of someone who does not like writing but likes the idea of “having written.” She is self-centered, narcissistic, attention seeking and directionless. She ends friendships over trivial matters and requires (and often begs) for frequent rescue. She tends to ignore or discount her friends’ problems while acting overly dramatic about her own.

Hannah Horvath is “awful” because she demonstrates almost no concern for anyone save herself.

Don’t get me wrong: I like Hannah Horvath. She is flawed, as is Walter White, as are all of us. She is struggling to find her path at a time when many of us also felt aimless and uncertain. She is often awful, but so are the rest of us. I like Hannah Horvath, but I would not want to be her friend. At this point in her life, she is focused primarily on herself.

Walter White, for all his criminal activity, repeatedly risks his life on behalf of his family and business partner. He’s a bad guy, but he’s not “awful.”

The reaction of viewers in regards to these to characters is not an issue of gender or sex or age. It’s simply a difference of motivation.

Hannah is most often motivated by her own self interest.

Walter White is most often motivated by his concern for others.

As a result, the viewer finds him less awful.

I suspect both Vince Gilligan (the creator of Breaking Bad) and Lena Dunham (the creator of Girls) would agree.

Nuclear bomb. Homemade timer.

My favorite thing about this incredible and terrifying video of the Baker Shot, a 23-kiloton nuclear bomb that was detonated about 90 feet underwater at Bikini Atoll in 1946, is the countdown timer in the first few frames.

They are detonating a nuclear bomb, and yet the timer looks as though someone has written in the numbers and the word FIRE by hand.

Happy 70th anniversary

My Aunt Diane has informed me that today would have been my grandparents 70th anniversary.

Albert Mandeville and Irene Rondeau were married at Precious Blood Church in Woonsocket, Rhode Island on a Monday morning, March 22, 1943, while my grandfather was on leave from the Army.

My Aunt Carolyn was born almost exactly 10 months later.

It’s remarkable to think about how many lives spun out from that day seventy years ago. Two people fell in love and married, and generations of families spilled forth as a result.

I wish they could’ve known my children.

There are many reasons to wish for time travel, but for me, one would be to travel back to this day and see my grandparents in the prime of their life.

Do Not Read List

I can’t remember the last time I was anti-book, but in this case, I agree wholeheartedly.

Standing up! First time!

The big guy pulled himself up for the first time last week.

Part of me was so damn proud of him.

A bigger part of me wanted to knock him on his ass and tell him to stop growing up.

 

I’m back.

Sorry, dear reader, for my recent absence. Rest assured it was the result of a lack of ideas or two days of oversleep or even death.

I mention the death part because one reader inquired about my state of existence after missing two days of posts. She understandably pointed to my two near-death experiences as a reason why she thought I might be deceased, but if I were dead, what kind of response was she expecting?

Alas, a full database on my server prevented me from uploading any more content, and a less-than-competent customer service representative assured me that the problem was not on their end, sending me on a 24 hour goose chase. 

It’s become apparent that I need to learn more about WordPress. Unable to do so this time, I did the next best thing:

I hired professionals to help.

Thanks to my friends on Twitter for recommending such outstanding an reputable professionals. The one silver lining born from these two days of frustrations that I think I’ve found myself a new website designer.

Hooray for small victories. 

I invited Bill Clinton and Oprah to our wedding. Their response was not surprising.

Last week lesbian student Kirsten Bledsoe asked actress Mila Kunis to be her date for her college cotillion via YouTube.

She is still waiting for a response.

When Elysha and I got married in 2006, I sent a dozen invitations to famous athletes and celebrities.

Derek Jeter. Don Mattingly. Oprah. Tom Hanks. Bill and Hillary Clinton.

I didn’t expect any of these people to accept my invitation, but I was hoping that they would decline and send a gift.

None did.

I’m hoping that Kirsten Bledsoe has better luck.

The bogeyman goes straight. But he’s still a bogeyman to me.

Two years ago I wrote about the Blackstone Valley sniper on this blog.

In a post entitled Childhood Bogeyman Returns, I wrote:

When I was a kid, my town and the surrounding communities were terrorized by the Blackstone Valley sniper. For a period of about two years, someone was firing a rifle into picture windows at the silhouettes standing behind the curtains. For a while, I remember being forced to leave the lights turned off by my parents in fear that we may present a target for the lunatic.

It turns out the Blackstone Valley sniper was actually two men, who are in the midst of 40 and 45 year sentences for their crimes. There was a total of eleven shootings from 1986-1987, and though no one was killed, four people were wounded in the attacks.

A piece of parental advice:

Parents should tell their kids when bad guys get caught. It may prevent an future evening of terrifying nightmares.

A month after publishing the post, a woman named Elizabeth commented on the post. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice the comment at the time so I didn’t reply. I just saw the comment this week, almost two years after she left it.  

Her comment was this:

FYI – Parents should also tell their children that sometimes, people pay for their crimes, and work to do good in the world afterward.

One of your “bogeymen” has made a new life since making parole 5 years ago. He has his own business in the Midwest, is a director on his local chamber of commerce, and an active member of his local Lions Club. Most importantly, he is a loving husband and stepfather. Not much of a bogeyman . . .

My reaction was twofold.

1. The reach of this blog (and the Internet in general) continues to amaze me. There is no telling who is going to read and respond to something I write.

A couple years ago I wrote about one of my favorite professors, Hugh Odgen, who tragically died after falling through the ice on a Maine lake. A year and a half after publishing the post, his son commented, expressing his appreciation for my words.

This is just one of many, many examples.

2. While I’m pleased to hear that rehabilitation can be effective and one of the two men who terrorized me for a good portion of my childhood has reformed his life and is now a productive member of society, it’s a lot of ask of me to think well of him. Let his wife and stepchildren and Lions Club brethren embrace him for the upstanding man that he has become.

I’m not ready to be so forgiving.  

When you force me to crawl under windows in fear of my life and celebrate Christmas without twinkling lights, you’re probably always going to be a monster in my mind.

Two favorite songs? Is that even possible?

A client for an upcoming wedding told me that his mother’s two favorite songs are The Isley Brother’s Twist and Shout and Bob Dylan’s Forever Young.

Two songs.

I can’t imagine what my children might say someday if asked by a DJ what their father’s two favorite songs are. I love so many songs by so many musicians.

Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

How could I ever narrow it down to two?

I think my answer might actually change on a minute-by-minute basis.

I was forced to parent like a lunatic for a night. It wasn’t pretty.

On Friday night we spent the night in New York City at a friend’s apartment. They are vacationing in Florida and were kind enough to let us stay at their place following a Moth StorySLAM.

Clara slept in their son’s crib and Charlie slept in a crib in the bedroom where we were sleeping. As we tried to quietly climb into bed after midnight, Charlie awoke and began crying.

At home we’d let him cry himself back to sleep (as we did last night), but on Friday night Elysha jumped out of bed and picked him up, worried that his crying might awaken our friend’s neighbors on the other side of the wall.

I had no idea that “crying it out” was not an option.

For one awful night, we were forced to live like the lunatics (I use this word with the utmost affection) who refuse to allow their children to cry it out and spend their nights rocking and nursing their children back to sleep or (even worse) taking their babies into bed with them.

It took more than an hour to get the boy back to sleep.

One night was enough to confirm two things:

1. Allowing your baby to cry him or herself to sleep is best for everyone involved, including your baby. Learning to sleep is a skill that is only acquired through practice. My daughter sleeps 10-12 hours every night without exception because she has been trained to sleep. Even at the age of four, she has thanked me for letting her cry it out when she was little.

2. Parents who refuse to allow their babies to cry it out really are lunatics. I don’t know how or why you people do what you do.

Again, I say this with the greatest affection.