the way we live in our culture and don’t see it…
I ponder why I’ve never thought one way or the other about above ground pools.
On her first show after the election, Samantha Bee, the comedic equivalent of a Facebook “share if you agree†post, said, “America has done the diplomatic equivalent of installing an above-ground pool. Even in the best case scenario and it doesn’t seep into the foundation, our neighbors will never look at us in the same way again.â€
Who has above-ground pools? Poor people of all races. Rural people with yards. The joke is simply “Poor people who try to act rich are tacky. People who don’t have the money to get a proper pool are an embarrassment, and they should be more concerned with the judgment of neighbors than their own happiness.â€
Sure. The show Sometimes I get tossed a reference point that I just don’t know. Apparently above ground pools are really something, to be slotted in the basic premise of a pre-scripted commentary metaphor — fill in the blank outrage reference.
And so it is the question. Indicative of something. Like, I can go one round better on the “above ground pool” line and throw you the old mud ditch out that away on a hot summers’ day. So it is… From what grounds on classist elitism does Samantha Bee find this line?
The Meritocracy in action — can’t find someone of a diverse background different from her’s in the writers’ staff to snub that line.
But alas. Today we see a snicker that Trump ate steak out at his Trump restaurant well done and with ketchup. I realize that when we’re talking about Trump eating steak well done and with ketchup we’re not talking about steak, but an attitude — so tasteless, so smothering of taste and so just like his proposed budget and immigration policies and presidential demeanor — but I’m stuck feeling like people who have been outraged when I order a salad without dressing.
The cultural puzzlements acure. In what is otherwise a “points well taken” editorial by Gloria Steinem, I become stuck on the just what is the definition of (derogatory term it be) “chick flick” / “chick lit”. I trend toward placing it in the same escapist line as the dismissive “dude wants to see a bunch of car crashes” comment she has upon hearing the phrase in an airplane. As we move through her definition of the new term of “prick flick” and various sexist tropes, I’m stuck right about here…
All the movies that portray female human beings as the only animals on earth that seek out and enjoy their own subordination and pain. From such whitewashed versions of prostitution as “Pretty Woman†(literally whitewashed, since poverty and racism mean that white women are much less likely to be prostituted) to …
Or. Ask me to name some “chick flicks”, and — after quickly summising whether this is a set-up and wind-up, just about first movie I would name … Pretty Woman. (A movie like, oh, The Color Purple — surely land on the problem Steinem is discussing — I wouldn’t mention.) Surely doesn’t fit feminist garb, and lands in a retelling of fairy tale tropes. Can a movie be both a “chick flick” and this category of “prick flick” — and if there’s a competition for a label shouldn’t the title be bestowed on which gender watches the movie more?
In other news. Say. What about the Oscars gaffe?
Like the recent presidential election, these Oscars were the worst ever. How could the staff give the presenters the wrong card? They had one task to do and they gave the presenters the wrong card for the most important announcement of the night!
After last year’s Oscars, and all the complaining by Will Smith, these felt like the “Affirmative Action Oscars.†Everyone will have their opinion on who is best but when you mix political causes to get the results you want then art is the true victim.
— Peter Klingchov
Think of the Awards shows and making judgements as generally a craps’ shoot of indifference whether a thing deserves it over another thing, and can think of some clunkers in the past that won the Big One that I think are clunkers — more so than Moonlight looks like. Which draws me to the smirking thought that this letter writer will be viewing any win by a minority group as undeserving affirmative action.
And then the conspiracy theory.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing was staged so they would elevate media attention for this year’s Oscars.
I did not watch the Academy Awards, and I’m sure a number of people did not either, but now it’s everywhere. You can’t open a newspaper, website or change the TV channels without seeing the “oohs†and “ahhs†from the Oscar flub.
I find it interesting that Ron Wyden thinks he knows things the FBI has long since cleared Trump on, namely the president’s supposed “Russian connection,” which is patently ridiculous [“Tinker Tailor Senator Spy,” WW, Feb. 22, 2017].
Where’s the proof, Senator? Imagine that, you have none.
Bubbles abound, over to our own sources and ignore those that don’t conform, and we’re in a narrative spittle rut of pre-programmed automatic reply “Imagine that, you have none” — none, unless you’re paying attention.