Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 1023
August 10, 2015
Chris Kyle is a stand-in for Clint: The author of Eastwood’s controversial biography on his new edition, including “American Sniper” and more
Patrick McGilligan’s “Clint, The Life and Legend” has inspired, over the years, almost as much controversy as its subject. Originally published in Britain in 1999, Clint floated around for a while in the U.S. looking for a publisher — according to rumors, threats from Eastwood’s lawyers scared most away. As the back cover correctly states, although "Clint" was “nearly sued out of existence by Clint himself, this biography was nonetheless critically acclaimed.” The Washington Post called it “A damning indictment of the man and the culture that lionizes him.” After a lot of litigation and some minor reworking, St. Martin’s Press released it in the U.S. in 2002. Writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, I called it “perhaps the most thoroughly demythologizing book yet written on modern Hollywood":
"McGilligan reveals, step by step, how an actor with such limited resources — his director in the so-called spaghetti westerns, Sergio Leone, felt that Eastwood had only two expressions, ‘with or without a hat’ — built an image not only as an actor but also as an auteur.” “Over the years, Eastwood fashioned a press corps perfectly willing to leave out discussions of his private life, including incessant womanizing, out-of-wedlock children, the neglect of his first wife, Maggie, and, eventually, their messy on-going divorce. McGilligan’s account of the demonization of Sondra Locke, Eastwood’s leading lady for six films and live-in companion for a decade and a half, by Eastwood and his devoted press is practically a book within this book. Thus did Eastwood gain a reputation as a star who ‘rarely gives interviews and hardly ever makes public appearances while at the same time being perhaps the most interviewed and successful (to his coterie) of stars’.”The current edition (released late last month by OR Books in New York and London) takes the Eastwood story over the last 13 years and includes the controversy over “American Sniper.” McGilligan, who has also written well-received biographies of Jack Nicholson, George Cukor, Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock (his next book is on the young Orson Welles), spoke to me about Clint and Clint from his home in Milwaukee. Practically the first thing one sees when opening Clint is “This book is not authorized by Clint Eastwood.” How tough was it to write an unauthorized biography of Clint Eastwood in comparison to an unauthorized bio of Jack Nicholson? I write about how cooperative the people and their circle were in the afterword notes to both of these books, since I think the process is revealing of the result. Jack was diffident, not controlling. He didn't really care that a book was being written about him. He told people who asked him about the book that it was up to them whether or not they wanted to participate. Some didn't anyway, out of typical Hollywood anxiety. Some did, just to prove themselves on equal footing with Jack. Some never gave interviews anyway, much less to me. But almost to a person, the people I spoke to loved and admired Jack and acted protectively about him, no matter what they said about him (not always simplistically positive). No one that I recall went off the record. It was more "let it all hang out" as it is with Jack in real life and on the screen. People around Clint, those that work for him, won't talk without his permission. Even many people who had known him for years — or hadn't seen him in years — wouldn't talk to me without his permission. They did not get that permission. He has been the master of his own image and publicity. He is a very different kind of actor than Jack, and a different kind of person — and people feared his reaction in a way that was not true of Jack. On the other hand, Clint has left many people behind in his career — personally and professionally — in problematic ways; and many people had never been approached before for their views of and experiences with him. More than one key person left behind told me that I was the first person who had ever asked for an interview about Clint. And for the first time, in any of my books, many people asked to speak to me "off the record" or went "off the record" during their interviews. I tended not to use what was off the record, but what I heard informed my portrait. What were some of the things Clint took issue with? I can't tell you what was taken out of the book without flirting with another lawsuit. But you can go back to news accounts, not entirely accurate, that say the three major claims against the book were my assertion that Clint got into a physical altercation with his first wife; that interesting context kept him from active duty in the Korean War; and that he was not known to subscribe to any organized religion. There were a handful of other claims against the book quickly dismissed by the judge in the case out of hand as beneath the notice of the law. The judge later mandated mediation after my eyewitness to the physical altercation signed an affidavit attesting he had never spoken to me, even although I had it on tape. However, there was a point at which Clint made it clear that he was going to sue and sue regardless, and St. Martin's Press, which had been very supportive, was eager to settle and get rid of the case, which was a financial drain. We agreed to take out or modify the parts of the book relating to the three major claims, and then we agreed to take out or modify a half-dozen more small things just to satisfy Clint and get it over with. The changes amount to less than two pages in the 600-page book. We got the right to continue to sell the book. We paid no penalty and admitted no wrongdoing. I myself didn't pay a penny, although holstered bailiffs rang the doorbell off and on for months, nervously fingering their warrants. To be honest, then and now the lawsuit is a badge of pride. Would it be fair to say that litigation figures in Eastwood’s life and career? One of the themes of this biography is how the real life intersects with the films. Dirty Harry, who excoriates lawyers and judges in those films, their sequels and other Clint cop movies, is big on lawyers and lawsuits in real life. In fact, I often say I might not have been sued if I had ended the book with a sentence declaring that I could not help but love Clint and his films. But I find that his personal life and behind the camera activity is reflected in the morality, the themes and the motifs — and all facets of his persona — in his films. In that sense, the book is completely auteurist, and that is one reason why the book is also liked by many people who adore Clint and his work, because they learn so much about him that the more fawning critics and journalists never bother to question or investigate. I can’t think of any actor or filmmaker who has been so adept at public relations as Clint Eastwood. If a film star of known left-wing sentiments had fathered so many children with so many different women, the conservative press would make him a target of their wrath. Yet Eastwood is a keynote speaker at the convention of the party of family values. How does he do it? To be fair, other big movie stars have fathered a lot of "illegitimate" children (a word that seems outdated). Jack Nicholson, whom I've also written about, has a bunch too. But I prefer Jack's values, even towards those children, but you'll have to read the two books and compare what I've written to see what I mean. In any case, Jack is hardly left-wing, although he is definitely left-liberal enough on plenty of issues. Mostly, you find that people who admire Clint Eastwood belong to one fan club, while Jack's is separate. A big fan of both is more rare. Be that as it may, Clint has been Republican since he donated and campaigned (appearing on a poster with Wilt Chamberlain, etc.) for Nixon. People don't think through what he stands for and what his movies are about. My book might help them do that. They respond to him emotionally and like his persona, again, without thinking it through in many instances where it might stand for something they don't like politically. But most of the people who love him and his movies are in accord with his values, on and beneath the surface. If you think the Republican Party is the party of family values, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I will sell to you! Mostly, people either like him or don't, and a significant percentage of people do like him and his movies. However, a significant percentage don't. Think of America as a red state/blue state nation, and we know how closely it is divided. He is really a red state movie star who crosses over regularly with movies that shrewdly appeal to more than one constituency. Films like “Trouble With the Curve” or “Jersey Boys,” for example, only have politics if you consider anything "retro" or traditional to be conservative. On the other hand, I'd bet the audiences for those movies are still largely Republican or people who consider themselves apolitical. I'm not sure his speech at the Republican National Convention wasn't the highlight of a boring convention, and savored by his fans in the crowd. I note in my book that Romney called on him for robo-calls across the nation, saying we should fire Obama! I had one on my own answering machine. Most film critics are male (sad but it's always been true) and most of them are invested in Clint's ideas about masculinity, America and Hollywood, even if they occasionally give him a bad review. Again, I don't believe they want to confront their own legacy of adoring him. There are things about him that are admirable and likable, but the vast majority of his films are of a piece. The politics of “American Sniper” seem to me to be pretty straightforward: Bradley Cooper’s Chris Kyle sees the World Trade Towers attacked and rushes to military service to fight in Iraq. I have trouble seeing that as anything but an endorsement of Bush’s Iraq policy. I’m amazed by the number of critics who see something more complex. If you think I’m wrong, feel free to straighten me out. Clint has made almost as many war movies as Steven Spielberg. He refought Korea in “Heartbreak Ridge” and “Gran Torino.” He saluted World War II twice with “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima.” And back in his salad days as a star, he took pointers from “Where Eagles Dare” and “Kelly's Heroes.” He knows how to stage exciting battle scenes, even if his scripts (he never writes them and often inherits them) are prosaic. The quality exception is “Letters from Iwo Jima,” which is a pretty great film. But my opinion is the more Clint takes himself out of a film — as the star or surrogate hero — the better film it has a chance of being. Critics ooh and aah over the battle sequences and the staging of “American Sniper,” and miss the larger points, some of which are cleverly embedded anyway. But the ones who said the character of Chris Kyle is one that Clint would have played in his prime are right. Kyle is a stand-in for Clint. What his character does in the film is little different than what William Munny does at the end of “Unforgiven,” strolling into a saloon and engaging in a gun battle with half a dozen bad guys, killing them all, and afterward riding into the sunset with nary a scratch. Gail Collins in the New York Times got it right: She said “American Sniper” was ultimately a pro-gun film. Clint's career has been a pro-gun career. He pioneered the huge body count and death toll in cop vigilante films, and his war movies do the same exponentially. The not-deep idea is that Americans —Men With No Name or Chris Kyle's name — have to use their guns and military hardware to save the town or the world, because other people aren't up to the task, and yes, innocent people die in the crossfire, but that's the price to pay for being America. I don't think film critics paid much attention to all the factual attacks on the film, much less the political ones from the left, all of which are worth reading. (Michael Moore was totally right!) Film critics (mostly male) love guns in movies almost as much as audiences have been conditioned to. The film's success is a sad commentary on how little has been learned from Iraq. But not everyone who went to see it thought it was a good or wise film either. I know Republicans as well as progressives who went out of curiosity and were appalled.Patrick McGilligan’s “Clint, The Life and Legend” has inspired, over the years, almost as much controversy as its subject. Originally published in Britain in 1999, Clint floated around for a while in the U.S. looking for a publisher — according to rumors, threats from Eastwood’s lawyers scared most away. As the back cover correctly states, although "Clint" was “nearly sued out of existence by Clint himself, this biography was nonetheless critically acclaimed.” The Washington Post called it “A damning indictment of the man and the culture that lionizes him.” After a lot of litigation and some minor reworking, St. Martin’s Press released it in the U.S. in 2002. Writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, I called it “perhaps the most thoroughly demythologizing book yet written on modern Hollywood":
"McGilligan reveals, step by step, how an actor with such limited resources — his director in the so-called spaghetti westerns, Sergio Leone, felt that Eastwood had only two expressions, ‘with or without a hat’ — built an image not only as an actor but also as an auteur.” “Over the years, Eastwood fashioned a press corps perfectly willing to leave out discussions of his private life, including incessant womanizing, out-of-wedlock children, the neglect of his first wife, Maggie, and, eventually, their messy on-going divorce. McGilligan’s account of the demonization of Sondra Locke, Eastwood’s leading lady for six films and live-in companion for a decade and a half, by Eastwood and his devoted press is practically a book within this book. Thus did Eastwood gain a reputation as a star who ‘rarely gives interviews and hardly ever makes public appearances while at the same time being perhaps the most interviewed and successful (to his coterie) of stars’.”The current edition (released late last month by OR Books in New York and London) takes the Eastwood story over the last 13 years and includes the controversy over “American Sniper.” McGilligan, who has also written well-received biographies of Jack Nicholson, George Cukor, Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock (his next book is on the young Orson Welles), spoke to me about Clint and Clint from his home in Milwaukee. Practically the first thing one sees when opening Clint is “This book is not authorized by Clint Eastwood.” How tough was it to write an unauthorized biography of Clint Eastwood in comparison to an unauthorized bio of Jack Nicholson? I write about how cooperative the people and their circle were in the afterword notes to both of these books, since I think the process is revealing of the result. Jack was diffident, not controlling. He didn't really care that a book was being written about him. He told people who asked him about the book that it was up to them whether or not they wanted to participate. Some didn't anyway, out of typical Hollywood anxiety. Some did, just to prove themselves on equal footing with Jack. Some never gave interviews anyway, much less to me. But almost to a person, the people I spoke to loved and admired Jack and acted protectively about him, no matter what they said about him (not always simplistically positive). No one that I recall went off the record. It was more "let it all hang out" as it is with Jack in real life and on the screen. People around Clint, those that work for him, won't talk without his permission. Even many people who had known him for years — or hadn't seen him in years — wouldn't talk to me without his permission. They did not get that permission. He has been the master of his own image and publicity. He is a very different kind of actor than Jack, and a different kind of person — and people feared his reaction in a way that was not true of Jack. On the other hand, Clint has left many people behind in his career — personally and professionally — in problematic ways; and many people had never been approached before for their views of and experiences with him. More than one key person left behind told me that I was the first person who had ever asked for an interview about Clint. And for the first time, in any of my books, many people asked to speak to me "off the record" or went "off the record" during their interviews. I tended not to use what was off the record, but what I heard informed my portrait. What were some of the things Clint took issue with? I can't tell you what was taken out of the book without flirting with another lawsuit. But you can go back to news accounts, not entirely accurate, that say the three major claims against the book were my assertion that Clint got into a physical altercation with his first wife; that interesting context kept him from active duty in the Korean War; and that he was not known to subscribe to any organized religion. There were a handful of other claims against the book quickly dismissed by the judge in the case out of hand as beneath the notice of the law. The judge later mandated mediation after my eyewitness to the physical altercation signed an affidavit attesting he had never spoken to me, even although I had it on tape. However, there was a point at which Clint made it clear that he was going to sue and sue regardless, and St. Martin's Press, which had been very supportive, was eager to settle and get rid of the case, which was a financial drain. We agreed to take out or modify the parts of the book relating to the three major claims, and then we agreed to take out or modify a half-dozen more small things just to satisfy Clint and get it over with. The changes amount to less than two pages in the 600-page book. We got the right to continue to sell the book. We paid no penalty and admitted no wrongdoing. I myself didn't pay a penny, although holstered bailiffs rang the doorbell off and on for months, nervously fingering their warrants. To be honest, then and now the lawsuit is a badge of pride. Would it be fair to say that litigation figures in Eastwood’s life and career? One of the themes of this biography is how the real life intersects with the films. Dirty Harry, who excoriates lawyers and judges in those films, their sequels and other Clint cop movies, is big on lawyers and lawsuits in real life. In fact, I often say I might not have been sued if I had ended the book with a sentence declaring that I could not help but love Clint and his films. But I find that his personal life and behind the camera activity is reflected in the morality, the themes and the motifs — and all facets of his persona — in his films. In that sense, the book is completely auteurist, and that is one reason why the book is also liked by many people who adore Clint and his work, because they learn so much about him that the more fawning critics and journalists never bother to question or investigate. I can’t think of any actor or filmmaker who has been so adept at public relations as Clint Eastwood. If a film star of known left-wing sentiments had fathered so many children with so many different women, the conservative press would make him a target of their wrath. Yet Eastwood is a keynote speaker at the convention of the party of family values. How does he do it? To be fair, other big movie stars have fathered a lot of "illegitimate" children (a word that seems outdated). Jack Nicholson, whom I've also written about, has a bunch too. But I prefer Jack's values, even towards those children, but you'll have to read the two books and compare what I've written to see what I mean. In any case, Jack is hardly left-wing, although he is definitely left-liberal enough on plenty of issues. Mostly, you find that people who admire Clint Eastwood belong to one fan club, while Jack's is separate. A big fan of both is more rare. Be that as it may, Clint has been Republican since he donated and campaigned (appearing on a poster with Wilt Chamberlain, etc.) for Nixon. People don't think through what he stands for and what his movies are about. My book might help them do that. They respond to him emotionally and like his persona, again, without thinking it through in many instances where it might stand for something they don't like politically. But most of the people who love him and his movies are in accord with his values, on and beneath the surface. If you think the Republican Party is the party of family values, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I will sell to you! Mostly, people either like him or don't, and a significant percentage of people do like him and his movies. However, a significant percentage don't. Think of America as a red state/blue state nation, and we know how closely it is divided. He is really a red state movie star who crosses over regularly with movies that shrewdly appeal to more than one constituency. Films like “Trouble With the Curve” or “Jersey Boys,” for example, only have politics if you consider anything "retro" or traditional to be conservative. On the other hand, I'd bet the audiences for those movies are still largely Republican or people who consider themselves apolitical. I'm not sure his speech at the Republican National Convention wasn't the highlight of a boring convention, and savored by his fans in the crowd. I note in my book that Romney called on him for robo-calls across the nation, saying we should fire Obama! I had one on my own answering machine. Most film critics are male (sad but it's always been true) and most of them are invested in Clint's ideas about masculinity, America and Hollywood, even if they occasionally give him a bad review. Again, I don't believe they want to confront their own legacy of adoring him. There are things about him that are admirable and likable, but the vast majority of his films are of a piece. The politics of “American Sniper” seem to me to be pretty straightforward: Bradley Cooper’s Chris Kyle sees the World Trade Towers attacked and rushes to military service to fight in Iraq. I have trouble seeing that as anything but an endorsement of Bush’s Iraq policy. I’m amazed by the number of critics who see something more complex. If you think I’m wrong, feel free to straighten me out. Clint has made almost as many war movies as Steven Spielberg. He refought Korea in “Heartbreak Ridge” and “Gran Torino.” He saluted World War II twice with “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima.” And back in his salad days as a star, he took pointers from “Where Eagles Dare” and “Kelly's Heroes.” He knows how to stage exciting battle scenes, even if his scripts (he never writes them and often inherits them) are prosaic. The quality exception is “Letters from Iwo Jima,” which is a pretty great film. But my opinion is the more Clint takes himself out of a film — as the star or surrogate hero — the better film it has a chance of being. Critics ooh and aah over the battle sequences and the staging of “American Sniper,” and miss the larger points, some of which are cleverly embedded anyway. But the ones who said the character of Chris Kyle is one that Clint would have played in his prime are right. Kyle is a stand-in for Clint. What his character does in the film is little different than what William Munny does at the end of “Unforgiven,” strolling into a saloon and engaging in a gun battle with half a dozen bad guys, killing them all, and afterward riding into the sunset with nary a scratch. Gail Collins in the New York Times got it right: She said “American Sniper” was ultimately a pro-gun film. Clint's career has been a pro-gun career. He pioneered the huge body count and death toll in cop vigilante films, and his war movies do the same exponentially. The not-deep idea is that Americans —Men With No Name or Chris Kyle's name — have to use their guns and military hardware to save the town or the world, because other people aren't up to the task, and yes, innocent people die in the crossfire, but that's the price to pay for being America. I don't think film critics paid much attention to all the factual attacks on the film, much less the political ones from the left, all of which are worth reading. (Michael Moore was totally right!) Film critics (mostly male) love guns in movies almost as much as audiences have been conditioned to. The film's success is a sad commentary on how little has been learned from Iraq. But not everyone who went to see it thought it was a good or wise film either. I know Republicans as well as progressives who went out of curiosity and were appalled.
I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood — and I’m not ashamed
Three years ago, I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood. It was obtained legally, supported by those closest to me, and I have never regretted it for a second since, circumstances that unfortunately don’t apply to every woman who elects to terminate a pregnancy. I understand that telling my story in a public forum might offend some people — that my decision, on its own, might offend them as well. Perhaps if I were your wife, or daughter, or friend, you might find some way to reconcile my agency over my body with your own beliefs, but I’m just some random girl you’ve never met, telling you something you didn’t ask to know, but something I have come to think of as important testimony: I’m one of the many Planned Parenthood clients who had an abortion there, a service that represents only 3 percent of its business. I didn’t have an abortion because I was raped, or because my life was in danger, or because the fetus was the product of incest. I had an abortion because I had recreational sex, got unintentionally pregnant, and wasn’t ready or willing to be a mother. This is something I haven’t written about before, but there comes a point when staying silent begins to look like shame — and I am not ashamed. I am, however, scared. I’ve told maybe a dozen people about my abortion, and shared the fact that I was going to write about it with even fewer, because, amazingly, we live in a world where the latter decision represents a greater threat to my health and safety than the former. The fact that writing about an abortion puts me in greater danger than actually having one is unacceptable, and fear is not going to keep me from speaking up anymore. Because I owe Planned Parenthood a debt. Planned Parenthood supported me at a time when I desperately needed it, and I want to support them now. Back in 2012, when I first discovered I was pregnant, the man I was seeing at the time was so flustered and without resource that he typed “abortion.com” into the search bar of the browser. I don’t blame him, because that was a scary moment for both of us. Fortunately for me, I knew better. I had been going to Planned Parenthood since 16, when a doctor recommended I get on the pill to regulate my menstrual cycle, and I trusted them explicitly with my health because I knew they trusted me explicitly with my body and my future. I didn’t have to tell them I was a 24-year-old working in a restaurant, living in a studio apartment in New York City. I didn’t have to explain that although I think I do want children someday, this man is not the person I wanted them with. I didn’t have to convince them I deserved their respect and kindness; they gave it willingly. And most important, I didn’t have to apologize. I still don’t. I was five weeks pregnant when I arrived at the facility on the morning of my abortion. A Planned Parenthood representative came to retrieve me from the curb and usher me past the picketers with their signs and photos. Once inside, every single person I interacted with looked me directly in the eye — like a person! — and asked me how I was feeling. Alexis, welcome. Alexis, how are you doing? Alexis, is there anything I can do for you? As I was shuttled from station to station in preparation for the procedure, everyone I encountered was capable, efficient and dedicated to making one of the most difficult days of my life as comfortable for me as possible. They provided me with resources, with support, and with honest, professional assessments offered without judgment so that I never felt pushed or prodded in any direction. As I lay back on the operating table waiting to go under, the full weight of what I was doing began to dawn on me. I’ve been pro-choice as long I can remember, but it was a choice I was hoping I’d never have to make. I have always spoken up for women’s rights, but when the moment came to actually claim one of those rights, a lifetime of conditioning kicked in and I was flooded with exactly the types of toxic judgment that have kept me silent all these years. You’re disgusting. You’re alone. You made a mistake. This isn’t right. You’re nobody. You’re nothing. Hot tears ran down the sides of my face, and ever mindful of being a good patient, I apologized to the cluster of medical professionals at the foot of my bed. I apologized because I was scared, because although I was sure of my decision, I was sorry to have taken up so much of their time with a mistake I caused in the first place. I apologized because that’s what is expected of me, and what I expected in return was to be ignored or for my feelings to be dismissed. But instead, the doctor who’d introduced herself as the woman completing the surgery, the one who knew the most about my mistake and my shame and how much space I was accidentally taking up in the world, told me it was OK and reached her hand up to hold mine as I went under. It is, to date, the kindest thing a stranger has ever done for me. I also never thanked her for it, so that’s what’s happening right now. As I sit in my apartment with snot running down my face and a sickness in my stomach imagining telling strangers this secret-that-should-not-be-a-secret, there is very little I can do to protect the institution that protected me, and that feels terrible. Never mind the fact that I’m sharing information with people who can’t be trusted with it, who haven’t earned it, and who won’t be nearly so delicate and respectful of my decision. According to them, perhaps, there was a window in which it was acceptable for me to have thoughts and feelings about my abortion, and it is now closed, and I’m supposed to put my head down and stay quiet and be thankful that I was given the gift of my own life, the way I want it. But I’m going to do something else, which is to share the facts of a day that was simple in some ways but unbelievably profound. I wish I’d done it sooner. So thank you, Planned Parenthood, for my abortion. I stand with you because you stood with me.Three years ago, I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood. It was obtained legally, supported by those closest to me, and I have never regretted it for a second since, circumstances that unfortunately don’t apply to every woman who elects to terminate a pregnancy. I understand that telling my story in a public forum might offend some people — that my decision, on its own, might offend them as well. Perhaps if I were your wife, or daughter, or friend, you might find some way to reconcile my agency over my body with your own beliefs, but I’m just some random girl you’ve never met, telling you something you didn’t ask to know, but something I have come to think of as important testimony: I’m one of the many Planned Parenthood clients who had an abortion there, a service that represents only 3 percent of its business. I didn’t have an abortion because I was raped, or because my life was in danger, or because the fetus was the product of incest. I had an abortion because I had recreational sex, got unintentionally pregnant, and wasn’t ready or willing to be a mother. This is something I haven’t written about before, but there comes a point when staying silent begins to look like shame — and I am not ashamed. I am, however, scared. I’ve told maybe a dozen people about my abortion, and shared the fact that I was going to write about it with even fewer, because, amazingly, we live in a world where the latter decision represents a greater threat to my health and safety than the former. The fact that writing about an abortion puts me in greater danger than actually having one is unacceptable, and fear is not going to keep me from speaking up anymore. Because I owe Planned Parenthood a debt. Planned Parenthood supported me at a time when I desperately needed it, and I want to support them now. Back in 2012, when I first discovered I was pregnant, the man I was seeing at the time was so flustered and without resource that he typed “abortion.com” into the search bar of the browser. I don’t blame him, because that was a scary moment for both of us. Fortunately for me, I knew better. I had been going to Planned Parenthood since 16, when a doctor recommended I get on the pill to regulate my menstrual cycle, and I trusted them explicitly with my health because I knew they trusted me explicitly with my body and my future. I didn’t have to tell them I was a 24-year-old working in a restaurant, living in a studio apartment in New York City. I didn’t have to explain that although I think I do want children someday, this man is not the person I wanted them with. I didn’t have to convince them I deserved their respect and kindness; they gave it willingly. And most important, I didn’t have to apologize. I still don’t. I was five weeks pregnant when I arrived at the facility on the morning of my abortion. A Planned Parenthood representative came to retrieve me from the curb and usher me past the picketers with their signs and photos. Once inside, every single person I interacted with looked me directly in the eye — like a person! — and asked me how I was feeling. Alexis, welcome. Alexis, how are you doing? Alexis, is there anything I can do for you? As I was shuttled from station to station in preparation for the procedure, everyone I encountered was capable, efficient and dedicated to making one of the most difficult days of my life as comfortable for me as possible. They provided me with resources, with support, and with honest, professional assessments offered without judgment so that I never felt pushed or prodded in any direction. As I lay back on the operating table waiting to go under, the full weight of what I was doing began to dawn on me. I’ve been pro-choice as long I can remember, but it was a choice I was hoping I’d never have to make. I have always spoken up for women’s rights, but when the moment came to actually claim one of those rights, a lifetime of conditioning kicked in and I was flooded with exactly the types of toxic judgment that have kept me silent all these years. You’re disgusting. You’re alone. You made a mistake. This isn’t right. You’re nobody. You’re nothing. Hot tears ran down the sides of my face, and ever mindful of being a good patient, I apologized to the cluster of medical professionals at the foot of my bed. I apologized because I was scared, because although I was sure of my decision, I was sorry to have taken up so much of their time with a mistake I caused in the first place. I apologized because that’s what is expected of me, and what I expected in return was to be ignored or for my feelings to be dismissed. But instead, the doctor who’d introduced herself as the woman completing the surgery, the one who knew the most about my mistake and my shame and how much space I was accidentally taking up in the world, told me it was OK and reached her hand up to hold mine as I went under. It is, to date, the kindest thing a stranger has ever done for me. I also never thanked her for it, so that’s what’s happening right now. As I sit in my apartment with snot running down my face and a sickness in my stomach imagining telling strangers this secret-that-should-not-be-a-secret, there is very little I can do to protect the institution that protected me, and that feels terrible. Never mind the fact that I’m sharing information with people who can’t be trusted with it, who haven’t earned it, and who won’t be nearly so delicate and respectful of my decision. According to them, perhaps, there was a window in which it was acceptable for me to have thoughts and feelings about my abortion, and it is now closed, and I’m supposed to put my head down and stay quiet and be thankful that I was given the gift of my own life, the way I want it. But I’m going to do something else, which is to share the facts of a day that was simple in some ways but unbelievably profound. I wish I’d done it sooner. So thank you, Planned Parenthood, for my abortion. I stand with you because you stood with me.Three years ago, I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood. It was obtained legally, supported by those closest to me, and I have never regretted it for a second since, circumstances that unfortunately don’t apply to every woman who elects to terminate a pregnancy. I understand that telling my story in a public forum might offend some people — that my decision, on its own, might offend them as well. Perhaps if I were your wife, or daughter, or friend, you might find some way to reconcile my agency over my body with your own beliefs, but I’m just some random girl you’ve never met, telling you something you didn’t ask to know, but something I have come to think of as important testimony: I’m one of the many Planned Parenthood clients who had an abortion there, a service that represents only 3 percent of its business. I didn’t have an abortion because I was raped, or because my life was in danger, or because the fetus was the product of incest. I had an abortion because I had recreational sex, got unintentionally pregnant, and wasn’t ready or willing to be a mother. This is something I haven’t written about before, but there comes a point when staying silent begins to look like shame — and I am not ashamed. I am, however, scared. I’ve told maybe a dozen people about my abortion, and shared the fact that I was going to write about it with even fewer, because, amazingly, we live in a world where the latter decision represents a greater threat to my health and safety than the former. The fact that writing about an abortion puts me in greater danger than actually having one is unacceptable, and fear is not going to keep me from speaking up anymore. Because I owe Planned Parenthood a debt. Planned Parenthood supported me at a time when I desperately needed it, and I want to support them now. Back in 2012, when I first discovered I was pregnant, the man I was seeing at the time was so flustered and without resource that he typed “abortion.com” into the search bar of the browser. I don’t blame him, because that was a scary moment for both of us. Fortunately for me, I knew better. I had been going to Planned Parenthood since 16, when a doctor recommended I get on the pill to regulate my menstrual cycle, and I trusted them explicitly with my health because I knew they trusted me explicitly with my body and my future. I didn’t have to tell them I was a 24-year-old working in a restaurant, living in a studio apartment in New York City. I didn’t have to explain that although I think I do want children someday, this man is not the person I wanted them with. I didn’t have to convince them I deserved their respect and kindness; they gave it willingly. And most important, I didn’t have to apologize. I still don’t. I was five weeks pregnant when I arrived at the facility on the morning of my abortion. A Planned Parenthood representative came to retrieve me from the curb and usher me past the picketers with their signs and photos. Once inside, every single person I interacted with looked me directly in the eye — like a person! — and asked me how I was feeling. Alexis, welcome. Alexis, how are you doing? Alexis, is there anything I can do for you? As I was shuttled from station to station in preparation for the procedure, everyone I encountered was capable, efficient and dedicated to making one of the most difficult days of my life as comfortable for me as possible. They provided me with resources, with support, and with honest, professional assessments offered without judgment so that I never felt pushed or prodded in any direction. As I lay back on the operating table waiting to go under, the full weight of what I was doing began to dawn on me. I’ve been pro-choice as long I can remember, but it was a choice I was hoping I’d never have to make. I have always spoken up for women’s rights, but when the moment came to actually claim one of those rights, a lifetime of conditioning kicked in and I was flooded with exactly the types of toxic judgment that have kept me silent all these years. You’re disgusting. You’re alone. You made a mistake. This isn’t right. You’re nobody. You’re nothing. Hot tears ran down the sides of my face, and ever mindful of being a good patient, I apologized to the cluster of medical professionals at the foot of my bed. I apologized because I was scared, because although I was sure of my decision, I was sorry to have taken up so much of their time with a mistake I caused in the first place. I apologized because that’s what is expected of me, and what I expected in return was to be ignored or for my feelings to be dismissed. But instead, the doctor who’d introduced herself as the woman completing the surgery, the one who knew the most about my mistake and my shame and how much space I was accidentally taking up in the world, told me it was OK and reached her hand up to hold mine as I went under. It is, to date, the kindest thing a stranger has ever done for me. I also never thanked her for it, so that’s what’s happening right now. As I sit in my apartment with snot running down my face and a sickness in my stomach imagining telling strangers this secret-that-should-not-be-a-secret, there is very little I can do to protect the institution that protected me, and that feels terrible. Never mind the fact that I’m sharing information with people who can’t be trusted with it, who haven’t earned it, and who won’t be nearly so delicate and respectful of my decision. According to them, perhaps, there was a window in which it was acceptable for me to have thoughts and feelings about my abortion, and it is now closed, and I’m supposed to put my head down and stay quiet and be thankful that I was given the gift of my own life, the way I want it. But I’m going to do something else, which is to share the facts of a day that was simple in some ways but unbelievably profound. I wish I’d done it sooner. So thank you, Planned Parenthood, for my abortion. I stand with you because you stood with me.
Stonewall is in our blood: How the new film’s white gay hero is the latest effort to erase trans activists of color
Imagine this: You are someone who has experienced discrimination or fear of your own identity (because you are gay or transgender, etc.) and there's no space to really be yourself. So, you decide to go to the Stonewall Inn, the sketchy mafia-run gay bar that often gets raided, but its patrons continue to attend en masse anyway. It's 1969. Imagine not being able to find a job, not just because you are gay or transgender but also because you are black or brown, and now, you have to go sell drugs or your body just to survive. Going to the Stonewall might be one of your only escapes from this horrid reality. The Stonewall might be somewhere you actually feel affirmed. Now, you may have been arrested once or twice, for wearing the “wrong” clothing or for drug possession, or any other illogical reason the NYPD could use to throw you in the back of a paddy wagon with a bunch of your friends to take you downtown. But you go out anyway. Imagine it’s a hot summer night and the police raid the bar, again. And instead of giving in, a crowd of people who normally would have gone into that paddy wagon stand up and speak out. They begin to yell and tell the police officers to go fuck themselves. The police officers stay in the bar, scared for their lives. A crowd swells outside, growing in numbers by the minute. This crowd is full of people who have been abused by the NYPD and are tired of giving in to the laws that say they are not allowed to be themselves. Suddenly, the officers start barricading themselves inside. The patrons outside are growing like a wave about to crash against the shore of the bar. Their anger, their love for each other and willpower to change the world they live in reaches a critical point when a young brown transgender woman takes a bottle, stuffs a towel into the bottle, and lights it. She throws it towards the bar, where the officers have barricaded themselves in and tried numerous times to call for backup, where she had previously been arrested, where she had picked up tricks and sold drugs to her friends. She threw a Molotov cocktail toward the old world and lit afire hope for a new one to follow. The Stonewall Riot, the historical event at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 described above — the "shot glass heard around the world" — was a real event led by queer and trans people of color (QTPOC), primarily trans women of color (TWOC) who had been harassed, attacked and abused by the New York Police Department for the previous decade or two. The NYPD abused its power against these communities with the most ridiculous charges. Police had a finger on the pulse of the Stonewall Inn and many other gay bars because the mafia ran and funded most of them. The uprising was a watershed moment in LGBTQ rights movement. And Roland Emmerich's new film “Stonewall” is a perfect representation of how white gay men have inserted themselves and taken over those movements that were started from the resistance of queer and trans people of color, especially black lesbians and trans women of color. “Stonewall” is the perfect representation of how white gay men have pushed out those same people who have given up their lives, liberty and freedom for the right to survive in a world that says we shouldn’t exist. The Stonewall Riots were one of many that took place across the United States in the 1960s when queer and trans people of color stood up to the policing of their communities by fighting back against police. A riot took place at Cooper’s Donuts in Los Angles and Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco. It has also been speculated that more riots took place whose stories have been lost. You’re probably wondering what this has to do with “Stonewall,” right? Our good friend Roland heard this story about the struggle, resilience and action taken by queer and trans people of color and was inspired to tell the story of a cisgender gay white man from a rural community who moved to New York and took part in the Stonewall riots. He was so inspired that he decided to center the trailer, and I assume the entire movie, which opens next month, on the gay white male perspective, including the organizing done by the Gay Liberation Front. What isn’t talked about in the history of the GLF, or the history of our own modern day LGBT communities and movements, is that these movements and organizing would not be possible without the frustration, blood and jail time of queer and trans people of color, especially trans women of color. In fact, Sylvia Rivera, a Puerto Rican transsexual woman, even did most of the groundwork for the GLF and was then pushed out when white gay male leadership wanted to begin to wear suits and “assimilate” (a word that was used in strategic conversations and a tactic by the U.S. government to “kill the Indian, but save the man” since the 1700s). Emmerich's "Stonewall" movie seems to be the perfect artistic experience to capture this, since it erases most QTPOC from the cinematic experience inspired by history and any movement building that might happen. I understand the passionate inspiring moment that the Stonewall Riots represent, and I also know that we shouldn’t romanticize the danger of the violent resistance of trans women of color — many of those women have been murdered by the police state and a society that refuses to let us exist. As a trans Latina woman, I have looked up to Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy since I first learned their names and their own respective roles in the Stonewall Riots. I understand how exciting it can be to learn of the action and fiery resistance that our community launched that night. However, it is not fiction, it is our history. This story is in our blood. Trans women of color have given up our freedom, safety and dreams to build the world that we live in today, and continue to be murdered in our push for a better life. What I can’t wrap my head around is why we need a fictional retelling of a historical event that doesn’t center on the communities that gave up so much to make it happen. After the riots in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Sylvia Rivera stood up at a Gay Pride Parade and tried to talk about the struggles of being a trans Latina woman, sex worker, drug drealer and street queen. She was almost booed off the stage. She refused to leave. Instead, she took up the space necessary to share her struggle. This is me refusing to leave and take up the necessary space to tell you why this movie’s lack of representation of our communities is an issue. Recently, an LGBTQ organization, GSA Network, started a petition to boycott Emmerich's "Stonewall." I think that we should direct our resources toward movies that are driven by and truly representative of the communities they are about. If interested, you can join the boycott here. Side notes & more things to know Where you can find historical facts about the people mentioned in this article and the Stonewall Riots: Martin Duberman’s "Stonewall" book Reina Gossett’s work "Happy Birthday Marsha," the movie Sylvia Rivera documentary Marsha "Pay It No Mind" Johnson documentary (I want to acknowledge that Marsha was murdered in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, which was never solved, and this had a deep effect on her good friend Sylvia, who struggled with alcoholism and died in the early 2000s fighting on her deathbed for a gender-inclusive employment non-discrimination bill for the State of New York.)Imagine this: You are someone who has experienced discrimination or fear of your own identity (because you are gay or transgender, etc.) and there's no space to really be yourself. So, you decide to go to the Stonewall Inn, the sketchy mafia-run gay bar that often gets raided, but its patrons continue to attend en masse anyway. It's 1969. Imagine not being able to find a job, not just because you are gay or transgender but also because you are black or brown, and now, you have to go sell drugs or your body just to survive. Going to the Stonewall might be one of your only escapes from this horrid reality. The Stonewall might be somewhere you actually feel affirmed. Now, you may have been arrested once or twice, for wearing the “wrong” clothing or for drug possession, or any other illogical reason the NYPD could use to throw you in the back of a paddy wagon with a bunch of your friends to take you downtown. But you go out anyway. Imagine it’s a hot summer night and the police raid the bar, again. And instead of giving in, a crowd of people who normally would have gone into that paddy wagon stand up and speak out. They begin to yell and tell the police officers to go fuck themselves. The police officers stay in the bar, scared for their lives. A crowd swells outside, growing in numbers by the minute. This crowd is full of people who have been abused by the NYPD and are tired of giving in to the laws that say they are not allowed to be themselves. Suddenly, the officers start barricading themselves inside. The patrons outside are growing like a wave about to crash against the shore of the bar. Their anger, their love for each other and willpower to change the world they live in reaches a critical point when a young brown transgender woman takes a bottle, stuffs a towel into the bottle, and lights it. She throws it towards the bar, where the officers have barricaded themselves in and tried numerous times to call for backup, where she had previously been arrested, where she had picked up tricks and sold drugs to her friends. She threw a Molotov cocktail toward the old world and lit afire hope for a new one to follow. The Stonewall Riot, the historical event at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 described above — the "shot glass heard around the world" — was a real event led by queer and trans people of color (QTPOC), primarily trans women of color (TWOC) who had been harassed, attacked and abused by the New York Police Department for the previous decade or two. The NYPD abused its power against these communities with the most ridiculous charges. Police had a finger on the pulse of the Stonewall Inn and many other gay bars because the mafia ran and funded most of them. The uprising was a watershed moment in LGBTQ rights movement. And Roland Emmerich's new film “Stonewall” is a perfect representation of how white gay men have inserted themselves and taken over those movements that were started from the resistance of queer and trans people of color, especially black lesbians and trans women of color. “Stonewall” is the perfect representation of how white gay men have pushed out those same people who have given up their lives, liberty and freedom for the right to survive in a world that says we shouldn’t exist. The Stonewall Riots were one of many that took place across the United States in the 1960s when queer and trans people of color stood up to the policing of their communities by fighting back against police. A riot took place at Cooper’s Donuts in Los Angles and Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco. It has also been speculated that more riots took place whose stories have been lost. You’re probably wondering what this has to do with “Stonewall,” right? Our good friend Roland heard this story about the struggle, resilience and action taken by queer and trans people of color and was inspired to tell the story of a cisgender gay white man from a rural community who moved to New York and took part in the Stonewall riots. He was so inspired that he decided to center the trailer, and I assume the entire movie, which opens next month, on the gay white male perspective, including the organizing done by the Gay Liberation Front. What isn’t talked about in the history of the GLF, or the history of our own modern day LGBT communities and movements, is that these movements and organizing would not be possible without the frustration, blood and jail time of queer and trans people of color, especially trans women of color. In fact, Sylvia Rivera, a Puerto Rican transsexual woman, even did most of the groundwork for the GLF and was then pushed out when white gay male leadership wanted to begin to wear suits and “assimilate” (a word that was used in strategic conversations and a tactic by the U.S. government to “kill the Indian, but save the man” since the 1700s). Emmerich's "Stonewall" movie seems to be the perfect artistic experience to capture this, since it erases most QTPOC from the cinematic experience inspired by history and any movement building that might happen. I understand the passionate inspiring moment that the Stonewall Riots represent, and I also know that we shouldn’t romanticize the danger of the violent resistance of trans women of color — many of those women have been murdered by the police state and a society that refuses to let us exist. As a trans Latina woman, I have looked up to Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy since I first learned their names and their own respective roles in the Stonewall Riots. I understand how exciting it can be to learn of the action and fiery resistance that our community launched that night. However, it is not fiction, it is our history. This story is in our blood. Trans women of color have given up our freedom, safety and dreams to build the world that we live in today, and continue to be murdered in our push for a better life. What I can’t wrap my head around is why we need a fictional retelling of a historical event that doesn’t center on the communities that gave up so much to make it happen. After the riots in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Sylvia Rivera stood up at a Gay Pride Parade and tried to talk about the struggles of being a trans Latina woman, sex worker, drug drealer and street queen. She was almost booed off the stage. She refused to leave. Instead, she took up the space necessary to share her struggle. This is me refusing to leave and take up the necessary space to tell you why this movie’s lack of representation of our communities is an issue. Recently, an LGBTQ organization, GSA Network, started a petition to boycott Emmerich's "Stonewall." I think that we should direct our resources toward movies that are driven by and truly representative of the communities they are about. If interested, you can join the boycott here. Side notes & more things to know Where you can find historical facts about the people mentioned in this article and the Stonewall Riots: Martin Duberman’s "Stonewall" book Reina Gossett’s work "Happy Birthday Marsha," the movie Sylvia Rivera documentary Marsha "Pay It No Mind" Johnson documentary (I want to acknowledge that Marsha was murdered in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, which was never solved, and this had a deep effect on her good friend Sylvia, who struggled with alcoholism and died in the early 2000s fighting on her deathbed for a gender-inclusive employment non-discrimination bill for the State of New York.)
Miley Cyrus slams Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood”: “And I’m a bad role model because I’m running around with my titties out?”
In the September issue of Marie Claire, Miley Cyrus — a card-carrying member of Team Katy — had some choice words to share about Taylor Swift’s Katy Perry takedown anthem "Bad Blood."
“I don’t get the violence revenge thing,” said Cyrus of the video, which features a gaggle of Swift’s celeb friends acting out a brutal revenge fantasy. "That's supposed to be a good example? And I'm a bad role model because I'm running around with my titties out? I'm not sure how titties are worse than guns.”
So now they care about sexism? The ugly hypocrisy of the right’s reaction to Trump’s Kelly slur
Congratulations, Donald Trump. You made sure that throughout a gorgeous summer weekend, headlines and chyrons everywhere blared your claim that a professional woman did her job badly because she was menstruating. I’m no fragile flower, but by Sunday, I admit, I felt a little bit ill.
Of course the media wasn’t making the charge, they were reporting it. And I’m not suggesting anyone should have censored Trump. But seeing the word “MENSTRUATING” over and over, linked to Megyn Kelly, a conservative journalist who is at the pinnacle of her profession, showed the extent to which a primitive fear and hatred of women powers far-right backlash politics today.
So many in the media are shocked at the rise of Trump and the piggishness he represents. I can’t understand why. From the dawn of the Obama administration some of us have experienced the surge of racism and misogyny personally.
Within days of Obama’s inauguration, I had former House Majority Leader Dick Armey tell me on “Hardball,” after I'd criticized Rush Limbaugh, "I'm so damn glad you can never be my wife, because I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day." A lot of folks on the left were outraged; on the right, they laughed and cheered Armey.
Twitter hated the “True Detective” finale: “I only kept watching in hopes someone would kill that lady singing in the bar”
After a couple of weeks of cautious optimism, the tide turned cruelly and swiftly against Nic Pizzolatto’s second season of “True Detective," with critics deeming it a massive failure and viewers tuning in increasingly to hate-watch rather than to try and make sense of the labyrinthine plot or contrived dialogue. While last night's conclusion may have brought little comfort to those who spent eight hours of their lives devoted to the show, it did yield plenty of good Twitter jokes, from Chad Velcoro’s email address to our hopes and dreams for that depressing bar singer. Let us reflect:
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John Oliver is totally flabbergasted by American sex education: “That is some incredible misinformation!”
On Sunday's "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver addressed America's sex education problem, a system he aptly described as being a "weird patchwork."
Sex education is currently only required in 22 states. Of those states, only 13 are required to present "medically accurate" info, Oliver went on to say.
To make his case, Oliver rolled a clip from a factually inaccurate -- and just, all-around bizarre -- antique sex education video (which, side note: featured a young Jonathan Banks of "Breaking Bad" fame).
Oliver argued that one of the biggest deficiencies in today's sex education videos is discussion around consent.
Naturally, the "Last Week Tonight" recruited some of his celeb friends -- many, many of them -- to create the sex education video that America deserves.
Celebs included: Laverne Cox, Kristen Schaal, Kumail Nanjiani, Nick Offerman, Megan Mullaly, Jack McBrayer, Aisha Tyler and Jonathan Banks.
Watch the clip courtesy of HBO below:
Fox News v. Donald Trump: It’s hard to destroy a monster of your own creation
One of the oddities about last week’s Republican debate (the main event, not the kids’ table debate) was the fact that a full 40 percent of the candidates who participated owed at least some of their current political relevance to the cable network hosting the event: Fox News. Two of the candidates were Fox News hosts when their political lives were on hiatus – John Kasich, who left Congress in 2001 and hosted “Heartland with John Kasich” until 2007 before running for governor of Ohio in 2010; and Mike Huckabee, whose weekend show “Huckabee” filled the time between his 2008 and 2016 presidential runs. Ben Carson shot to political stardom in 2013 after railing against Barack Obama’s policies at the National Prayer Breakfast, and he kept himself in the political spotlight by signing on as a Fox News contributor – a position he held up to the point that he started running for president.
Donald Trump says he doesn’t owe Megyn Kelly an apology for “blood” remarks: “What I said was appropriate”
Over the weekend and right on into this morning, Donald Trump continued to insist that his demeaning comments about Megyn Kelly's "blood coming out of her wherever" was not a reference to menstruation, but to the fact that she had figurative blood coming out of her nose during last week's presidential debate, adding that anyone who interpreted his remarks otherwise is a "deviant."
Monday on Today, he told Savannah Guthrie that his statement wasn't even intended "to be much of an insult," noting that, hypothetically, "if I had said that, it would have been inappropriate." The conditional acknowledgment of his non-apology aside, Trump claimed that he "didn't even finish the answer, because I wanted to get on the next point."
Paul Krugman: GOP candidates can’t attack Obama because of party’s disastrous record of predicting his failures
In his column on Monday, Paul Krugman tackled the problem that the GOP candidates in last week's first presidential debate couldn't -- the fact that President Barack Obama's signature policy, the Affordable Care Act, is an overwhelming success.
It was only mentioned nine times during the debate, which is -- depending on how you tally efforts to defund and repeal it -- at least 45 fewer times than Republicans have voted to dismantle it. There was a good reason that the candidates skirted the issue, Krugman said, and that's because "[o]ut there in the real world, none of the disasters their party predicted have actually come to pass."
"President Obama just keeps failing to fail," he continued, and the fact that more people are insured, and that they are, "by and large, please with their coverage," means that Republicans can't go after the program and have any chance of winning the general election.
