My 2012 Resolutions…As If You’d Care
Normally, New Year’s Resolutions are a bunch of royal phooey in my head. Most people don’t carry through with their resolutions. And while most are made with sincere intent, many are just fads, like the typical ’10 lbs lost by February’ resolutions. If I’m going to make a resolution that is meant to make me a better, more self-fulfilled person, I’m going to personalize the shit out of my resolution so that I have the greatest chance of success, right? There really should be a lot of planning and thought that goes into creating a single resolution.
Well, guess what? I made two! One to improve upon a flaw, and one to open my mind to something new.
RESOLUTION A: I will *permanently* beat my sugar addiction, and be able to painlessly refuse a piece of chocolate by June.
Don’t laugh. I do, indeed, have a tragic addiction to both simple and complex sugars (which has been scientifically proven to be possible). It has, I believe, led to the fact that I feel absolutely gross even when I eat something healthy, like a salad. My theory is, without sugar, there will be no guilt, and my food phobias will be significantly reduced. Sugar apparently can inhibit brain function, and I have candy at least once daily to curb my craving.
I understand this challenge will be painful. I could possibly experience withdrawal symptoms similar to an alcoholic’s hangover. Candy surrounds me in stores, malls, and even in the office. Learning to resist my favorite food in the Universe is going to kick my ass so hard I could possibly die an emotional death if I don’t do this right. That’s why I added the second part of this first resolution. It gives me a realistic time frame in which to overcome Stage A, which is sugar-toxification, and transition to Stage B: ignoring the cravings.
I’m also doing this not just to curb a bad habit, but to prove to myself that I can do it. I’ve always been convinced I have minimal will power. I will say I’ll wake up at 6AM to hit the gym, then hit the snooze button and lock my cat out of my room so he won’t disturb me when I sleep in until 8:30. I’ve always been a spur-of-the-moment type, and when it comes to laziness, I’m about as miserably and tragically endowed as they come. If I don’t feel it, I rarely press through the laziness and overcome it in order to do what I need to.
RESOLUTION B: I will take up archery, and shoot three bulls-eyes by the end of 2012.
I am TOTALLY not doing this because of Disney/Pixar’s Brave coming out next year, and doing this will completely make me the ideal candidate to cosplay Princess Merida…despite us having the same hair, same personality, same heritage, and same degree of epic awesomeness (and I can just tell this from the trailer).
No, I’m doing this to counter-act some of my lazy personality. In my area, the closest archery club is 15+ miles away. This one will help me built up my motivation, and take on a hobby that is actually active. You know, something other than reading, writing, and needlepointing. I’ve actually privately wanted to take this up for a few years, and now that I’m not afraid to drive anymore, I think I can make that trip 15 miles down the freeway once or twice a week. I went to a summer camp for several summers in a row as a child, and the camp had an archery range. I remember getting a bulls-eye on my second attempt, and was one of only a handful of kids who could even hit the target.
This will give me something to practice and perfect. It is something that will take me time, and again, this is why I added a second claus to the resolution that paints a realistic time frame.
Well, fair readers, wish me luck on this quest! I will probably keep you updated on it if you care to follow me! *deep breath*
ASIDE: The first resolution will not commence before January 1st to accomidate for consumption of holiday goodies, of course!
Oh Fudge! Why the Stupidest Traditions Are Also the Best Traditions
In my house, we have a clod of dog hair hanging off our Christmas tree every year. It’s as much a beloved ornament on the ol’ plastic evergreen as any other.
It came from an ex-dog of ours who now resides in the Blessed Kennel Club in the Sky, Finn. Finn was a hairy, hairy German Shepherd/Collie mixture, and he shed so often our poor Dyson couldn’t handle it. But the one place we could never seem to get all the hair off of him was the place around his touchas. Finn wouldn’t let us touch his hindquarters, and as a result of neglect, the hair there matted into a giant hair clump just beneath his tail, and it drove my mother insane. However, on his last Christmas on Earth, Finn magically shed the giant hair clod, right beneath the tree, a present for my mother’s sanity. She tied a red ribbon around it and placed it on the tree, dubbing it ‘The Magic Dingleberry of Christmas.’ In subsequent years without our beloved doggy, Mumsie still tears up a little when pulling the blessed wad of butt-fur out of the ornament case.
This is probably the most perfect example of why seemingly stupid traditions to one household may carry emotional memories and lots of love in another. We are probably the only family in the country that worships a hair clump at the holidays. Of course, that is only one of many of our family traditions that are ungodly immature and annoying, but yet we still manage to hold close to our hearts. The Magic Dingleberry might not even be the most profound, but it was the first one that came to mind.
But while I get into the heart of this post, let me relay to you a conversation between my sister and I (verbatim) during a viewing of the Rankin-Bass Holiday Classic ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’:
SISTER: Holy s***! Santa was a ginger?!? Mrs. Claus too??
ME: Yeah? So was Dumbledore.
SISTER: Does that mean all gingers grow giant white beards, get magic powers, and walk around in flamingly flamboyant robes with droves of admirers worldwide?
ME: I guess so.
SISTER: Just wondering.
ME: That evil mayor’s face looks like a hamburger.
Apologies to Rankin-Bass for defiling their beloved masterpiece. And believe me, that was the least random of our commentary.
I do adore this time of year. You really can tell a lot about a household by their holiday traditions and how closely they celebrate, if they celebrate at all. Some people are Scrooges. Their houses are bare of any holiday décor, be it Jewish, Moslem, Kwanzaa-ese (?), Christian, Wiccan, secular, etc. Others spare no expense, and buy up every possible version of a Frosty The Snowman 8-foot blowup for the front lawn (an example of this would be my Aunt Robin). Some people sleep in until 10AM, some people get up at the butt-crack of dawn. Some break out the fancy cocoa, bagels, sausage bread, and some just don’t bother with breakfast at all. Every family is different, and I really get into how many combinations of traditions that can manifest on a single block alone.
This is also why I cannot stand the people who insist that ‘Happy Holidays’ is offensive to Christians, who would prefer ‘Merry Christmas.’ ‘Happy Holidays’ is all-inclusive of what is ultimately a month-long season that contains more religious and secular holidays than any other time of the year. ‘Merry Christmas’ is but one of those many celebrations, and the only reason it is so widespread to begin with is because Christmas is the victim of the most commercialization. ‘Happy Holidays’ is an abbreviation that only takes a moment to say. People need to get over that.
Same goes for ‘Holiday tree’ versus ‘Christmas tree.’ Yes, Jewish people don’t open gifts around a ‘Chanukah bush’ or anything, but do these fundamentalists realize that Christmas trees come from an ancient druidic and Norse pagan rite that involved entire villages of ‘heathens’ dancing around a decorated evergreen in order to ward off the cold and summon daylight? ‘Christmas tree’ has come to be the more typical way of referring to the tree tradition, but it means something different to everyone. To a Bible-believer, it may represent Jesus, while to me it represents years of epic gift-receiving and pre-game poking/peeking while Mum was out shopping. If anything, however, a ‘Holiday tree’ is more accurate a label, as the Bible never insists on celebrating Jesus’ birth with a big old tree in the living room. If anything, Christians should be importing sheep and smoking ‘frankincense’ but that only seems to happen on college campuses anymore.
Those who bring up ‘political correctness’ and ‘the reason for the season’ end up ruining the holidays for everyone else, as opposed to reclaiming it. How do these people not figure that out? Are these people the modern-day Scrooges who insist on having December their way or no way? Perhaps so. At least that’s how I see it.
So, too all of you: Happy/Merry Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Festivus, ‘Hi, Neighbor!” Month, Boxing Day, Las Posadas, St. Nicholas Day, and Holidays I Probably Forgot! May your season be filled with awesomely random traditions, and don’t shoot your eye out!
The Difference Between ‘Next Door’ and ‘Raving Lunatic’
I write this, my friends, laboring under the delusion that someone is still interested in what I have to say after a six-month hiatus.
The Presidential Election is only a year away now (give or take a fortnight), and such a thought brings me back to 2008, which will forever live in my memory as a night of victory and celebration. Yes, I’m flashing back now, bear with me. We’ll get to the angry tirades in a moment…
…my school had an Election Night Party in the Student Union. A big screen broadcasting live from CNN took up a wall, couches and pizza were brought in, and practically everyone was there (my campus;’ student body of 500 could easily fit inside the room). You could paint pictures of the evil looks the Republican and Democratic Clubs were giving each other from opposite corners (disappointingly, no fights broke out that night). And when Obama was declared the projected winner, I was the first one, by a fraction of a second, to absorb it.
And let me tell you, my war whoop of excitement was probably the loudest.
The Democratic Club, as well as the portion of the student body who voted Obama (including myself), went berserk. My friends and I went giddy as schoolgirls and skipped around campus. A new era was dawning. We could feel it hanging in the air above our heads.
Ladies and Gentlemen, that air of hope and change has been blown away and diluted. And, (sing it with me now!) I blame the media.
You know how in those old Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul books, you probably skipped through the chapters on friendship, hope, and charity and went right for the ‘Death and Tough Stuff’ section? Yeah, the media does that too. Only replace the ‘tough stuff’ with ‘negative forces, stupidity, and controversy.’ Our culture likes to react to the negative. It’s just America’s way. I suppose it’s meant to be a reflection on the American Cinderella archetype, in that any good American can live in an absolute shithole but still rise up to become President. Dumb as a hammer? No problem! Minority? Who cares?! Surrounded by controversy when you got caught in that gay club after leaving the NOM rally? Good for you! It’s sort of the media’s roundabout way of portraying the everyday man’s problems for the non-everyday man.
And with that said, I give you The 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate Nominees…
The Other Black Guy, TweedleDee, TweedleDum, Token Woman, Tall Man, and That Other Old White Guy
Each one crazier than the next. I won’t go into detail as to why each one of them scares me shitless as they inch closer to the nomination, but I rather want to focus on what they all have in common:
They all want to be seen as The Guy (or Bachmann) Next Door…who somehow still totes Corporate Politics.
What is the GOP’s fascination with being one of the good ol’ fellas, anyway? Meanwhile, being the very same party that supports the expansion and tax-breaks for Big Businesses and trickle-down economics.
Doesn’t that seem like a bit of a contradiction to you? I mean, if you were the party of the people, wouldn’t you want to bring the Big Man down and support the local businesses, farmers, as well as education in poor neighborhoods? In order to be the legitimate People’s Party….YOU NEED TO BE THE PEOPLE’S PARTY!
Or the People-Eater’s Party.
Talk about your logical mishaps. More so than their circular explanations against marriage equality, women’s reproductive rights, and cutting taxes for the wealthy 1%, this seems to be the big hole in the GOP’s most recent re-imaging. And yeah, they do get re-imaged a lot. But this ‘Hometown Candidate’ theme is a consistency each time…if you can call a contradictory label that doesn’t apply consistent.
Seriously, look at each candidate’s angle, and tell me there aren’t some strange contradictions abound. We have Michelle Bachmann, who mentions no less than three times in a debate that she’s a mother and foster mother to at least 20 children (madness). She represents the ladies, the everyday struggling mother, and she promises she’ll bring the woman’s and the mother’s touch to the white house. Yet, she is a firm toter of overturning abortion and women’s reproductive choices, as well as birth control.
Hermain Cain is ‘the other black guy’ who accuses Democrats of being racist, while constantly hitting at Obama for being ‘the WRONG black guy’ and using his race as his main selling point as ‘the guy YOU can relate to.’
Then there’s Romney and Perry, who I’m convinced don’t give a shit about whether or not they win the White House as long as they beat the other out for the nomination. I really think their constant bitching at each other makes each of them look decreasingly competent and more like rivals for Homecoming Queen.
I think the less said about Ron Paul, the better.
Not pictured: Ron Paul’s campaign manager, Ross Perot.
I think all of this just goes to show that not only does the GOP not know what the hell they’re doing in picking nominees, but that the GOP invests so much in the image of a candidate that they have nothing left to invest in the quality of the person representing their party. If anything, that will lead to the destruction of the party. Not their issues, not their funding. Because the most unassuming shell can open up to reveal a rotting inside.
Someone should tell the Republicans that not everyone likes their next door neighbors.
The Not-So-Secret Life of the Sex-Obsessed Gen-Z Teenager (A Review?)
As I’ve said time and time again, the way the Baby Boomers and Gen-X-ers love to portray Gen-Y and Gen-Z royally annoys me. Are we really any more selfish or oblivious to what lies beyond the end of our noses than our elders? Do we really have more sex? Are we obsessed with trivial, mindless dribble like Jersey Shore for the reasons the Boomers think we are?
Let me answer this with my favorite quote from West Side Story (which I love for the Jets/Sharks dance-fights, NOT the Romeo + Juliet plot). An elder character named Doc is scolding the group of Jet kids for harassing a Shark girl:
DOC: “You make this world lousy!”
JET BOY: “We didn’t make it, Doc.”
I think that explains it all. I really believe that every youth generation becomes the product of whatever the generation before it puts in front of them. How else do we learn anything? What sucks is the fact that the same generation that made us also criticizes us for behaving the way we were taught. And then that criticism turns into the bullshit we find on television that supposedly is ‘real’ or at least what we’re expected to be like. I think the Boomers would be surprised as to how many of us Gen-Y folk are disgusted by how we’re portrayed.
Case and point: The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
This show, for me, is the scripted, upper-middle-class version of Jersey Shore. It’s just as shameful, just as embarrassing, just as ridiculous. It’s one of those shows that I sincerely hope doesn’t become the Happy Days of Gen-Y.
The premise started off almost promising to be something of substance. Teen girl gets pregnant. Pretty standard nowadays. She decides to keep it…not surprising seeing as the ‘brilliant’ mind behind the show also brought you 7th Heaven. Life is flipped upside down. Blah blah blah.
Then, things started taking an extremely offensive turn. The show started becoming about the teen cast talking about nothing but sex, sex, losing virginity, sex, sex, and someone ELSE getting pregnant (guess we silly kids can’t learn a damn thing from others’ mistakes) and deciding to keep it (thank you Brenda Hampton). At one point, the Evangelical True-Love-Waits Poster Girl character loses her virginity the night her dad dies in a plane wreck and blames his death on the fact she didn’t choose to wait (I’m not going there, not room on the internet). The adult’s subplots are no better, and just as mindless. The parents, of course, remain oblivious to the fact their kids fuck around more than Mata Hari on Valentine’s Day. These sixteen-year-olds discuss marriage as a legit option at their age, for Christ’s Sake. No college, no prospects for their future other than marriage, kids, sex, and sex. Every season-finale cliffhanger so far has been either ‘is she pregnant?’ or ‘are THEY sleeping together?!’
Oh, and I don’t even need to mention how abortion isn’t an option for ANY of the pregnant teen characters, nor adoption. You make it, you keep it. That’s the way it is. And somehow, after the baby pops out, life is suddenly a bowl of cherries, only with an adorable, seven-month-old bundle of joy fresh out of the pubescent oven.
Oh, and lest I mention the grossly oversimplified teen stereotypes used. It’s almost satirical how many shells and labels are used in this show. You have the ‘Cute Outcast’ female lead, the ‘hipster’ kid sister who’s got more sense than anyone else but constantly is undermined, the slut, the manwhore, the dork, the Asian couple a la Glee, the busybody best friends who in spite of their ‘BFF’ status are hardly heard of, the Bible-thumping cheerleader, and the misguided former Bible-thumper who dates her on and off. Seriously, where’s Molly Ringwald? Oh snap, she’s their too, playing the mom (ironic casting, far out).
So, where to begin?
Should I rant about how the whole show goes out of its way to portray ALL of the characters as dumber than a box of rocks? How they’re all either sex-crazed horn dogs or extreme prudes with no middle-ground? The poor writing? The poor acting? The usage of a cliched scenario for the purposes of preaching the conservative agenda of the head writers?
‘Exploit me! It’s what Jesus made me for!’
No. Instead, I’m going to take a deep breath and just hope that the reason this show is so popular is because kids tune in to make fun of it. I know that’s why I did for awhile, before it got too unbearable.
The thing is, look who our parents are. The late Boomers and the Gen-X-ers, the leaders of the Sexual Revolution. Free love, birth control abundance, sexual exploration and curiosity for younger and younger kids. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve very liberal. I believe if you’re smart about it, why not?
What I can’t stand is the fact that when WE do it, they have to scold us and whip out the old Abstinence-Only card. Oh, and write shit fests like Secret Life. Make us, and then insult us. Didn’t Thomas More write about that in Utopia?
You’d think the Boomers would learn from the fact that the Greatest Generation did the EXACT same thing to them. You know, the Boomers were raised by Betty Crocker and GI-Joe Veteran. Why do you think they fought back to create their own identity and started the Sexual Revolution to begin with?
Unfortunately, Gen-Y isn’t as rebellious. We just sit and watch The Situation sleep with his thousandth faux-Guido chick trying to bring back the Beehive.
So really, what does this mean for us, and for our children (God and Goddess forbid we have them)? Will we tell them to suck it up and deal with our shit like the Boomers did (and continue to do) for us? What IS it with every adult generation losing their understanding for the youth? We all were the youth generation at one point? At what point in time to we just throw all of our frustrations to the wind and believe it’s our turn to toss our bullshit on the kids?
It reminds me of this tradition my college has. The first day of every school year, the freshman have to wear signs with their names on it for a week. if they are caught ANYWHERE (bathrooms and bedrooms included) without it on their person, seniors force the poor freshman to sing a kiddie song on top of the senior table. Then, at the end of the same year, the freshman create ’20 Days’ for seniors. The last 20 Days of classes, seniors must comply to the ‘theme’ for each day by wearing what the calendar says (an example may be ‘silly hat day’). If they don’t, a freshman, in vengeance for being subject to the same humiliation none months prior, will force the senior to sing on the table.
Ah….revenge. Maybe that’s the magic word.
Which, really, makes the whole thing even more repulsive. It isn’t about learning or not learning from youth what kids should and shouldn’t have to put up with, but rather taking out hidden frustrations on the new generation. Maybe it’s all just another bit of proof that humans are petty, ugly creatures.
And we all know much I hate people and how incredibly stupid they are.
‘This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me behind the Safeway!’
Only now, it’s physically taking a toll on us. Teenage girls are now actually trying to get pregnant behind K-marts to get onto 16 and Pregnant for the fame it brings to them and their boyfriends. Fake tans and douche-bag haircuts that make you look like trash are more popular then ever. It’s madness, and it’s harming us.
Seriously, guys, this needs to stop. I’m genuinely pleading with the media here. I don’t want my generation to be the ‘Fame-Baby’ generation. The Spoiled Brat Millennials who expect everything to fall into the palm of their hands. The kids who don’t learn anything when their best friend had unprotected sex and end up getting knocked up themselves. That is what you, Baby Boomers, are making us.
But you don’t care, as long as you get your Social Security at 65, right? Yeah, fuck that. And fuck you.
It seems so hard to imagine…
So….Facebook is a wonderland of good topics to rant about, yes? Let us spin the Topic-Of-The-Day-O-Lever and see what comes up!
*Spins*
“As much as I hate to admit it, there is a bias against Christianity in this country. [Soul Surfer] A movie about a girl using faith in Jesus to rebuild her self confidence causes controversy but a movie like ‘Easy A’ which portrays Christians as stupid over zealous pricks gets critical acclaim.” –Anonymous On FB
*Sighs*
For the record, I believe the person who wrote this to be decent man, and considering I’ve derived this from how little I know him, that’s a pretty hard thing to say with confidence, but I do.
Soul Surfer, which comes out this week, I believe, is an autobiographical story about that girl several years ago who’s arm became a Lean Cuisine meal for a shark, and her journey through recovery, tested faith, and overcoming all to continue her passion, which is surfing.
The ‘faith,’ as you probably have already deduced, is that delightful little acceptable-excuse-for-everything-in-this-country: Christianity.
Now, let me make my peace quickly with Christianity here and now. I have my little gripes about the faith itself, but that is why I do not believe in it. I can let our differences go and move on with my life. What I loathe is not the church, but the choir and their evangelical Song of Hell that’s directed at everyone but the mirror. It’s those who brainwash kids to spread the word and the fundies who will use violence in the name of Jesus who anger me so much. Oh, and the politicians who use it as an excuse to take away my rights and my friends’ rights. They can go to hell.
Back to my point. Yes, I agree, in many, many cases in American media, Christianity is treated like crap. While I DID like ‘Easy A’ I liked it for it’s satirical nature…not it’s antagonistic usage of conservative people. Christianity, for the most part, does not deserve such portrayals in more serious media, which it still sometimes gets.
However, I must interject on behalf of my neopagan breathren and sister-en (?) and say that Christians shouldn’t bitch about films like ‘Easy A’ or ‘Saved!’ These films, at least, are flaming satires and don’t hide it. There are some cases in pop media where Christianity is given a positive spin. Like Soul Surfer, yes. But also in the multitude of openly Christian singers, country and mainstream pop (annoying as they are *coughcoughDISNEYCHANNELcough*) who are portrayed as honest people who trust in Jesus.
Try slapping the old Wiccan label an on honest musician, and what do you get images of? That ‘honest’ just seems to disappear, doesn’t it?
Pagans get SHIT when it comes to media portrayal nowadays. Or…ever…days. The archetypical teenager goth/emo punk who lives at Hot Topic and is borderline-sociopath is all you’re going to see. Ever. Not only is it not an accurate depiction, but it’s consistent across the board and completely embarrassing.
Just look at The Craft, which came out almost twenty years ago. You have a group of…well…teenage goth chicks who are borderline sociopath as the main characters. And they’re Wiccan. Surprise!
Fun fact, the film’s star, Fairuza Balk, who played the Craziest of Them All is, in fact, Wiccan in real life.
Blessed Be…now DIIIIEEEEEE!!!!
See? At least Christianity gets a good fighting chance not to make a negative name for themselves. We neopagans never had the chance. It started way back in the Roman times when Catholics became the kings and pagans became lion food. Thanks, Pope WhatHisNuts XVI, thanks a shit ton.
I guess, historically, that’s a case of turnabout, as the Roman pagans weren’t so nice to the Christians first (yes,again with the lion food). But didn’t Mr. Jesus preach that whole ‘turn the other cheek’ thing?
The whole idea of evil heathens never changed, I guess, because here we are, 2011, and the only good portrayal of pagans I’ve seen is a girl-power version of Morte D’Arthur that didn’t even get a theatrical release. It’s called Mists of Avalon and it remains to this day among my Top 5 Favorite Films Ever Made.
See it. Now. What are you still reading this blog for?!?
Unfortunately, Mists isn’t even contemporary in terms of time frame.
At the end of it all, the secret word for the whole thing, is discomfort. Religion is not a very graceful topic to bring up in private or public, let alone in popular media. It’s hard to relate to because if you do have common ground with one religion, you may inadvertently be insulting someone of another faith who happens to be in the same room. Hell, just for being neopagan, every citizen of Utah has a genetically inborn thirst for my blood. The only way one can successfully remove the awkward is to insert humor up it’s butt instead. Then at least the uncomfortable laughter can be masked by genuine laughter.
I don’t see why people need to get so defensive over it all. We Wiccans take these dumbass versions of ourselves with a grain of salt for the most part anyway. Why? Because we know it’s all stupid.
My question now is, why are so many Christians so testy? Compared to Wiccans and other minorities, you really don’t have all that much to complain about. So just sit back for once, and enjoy your new pro-Christian movie.
Oh, and the next time you steal one of our holidays, take the sex out of it, and turn it into an excuse to pig out and then pray for forgiveness for it, might I suggest Litha? Lots of bonfires, lots of dancing, lots of food. Funtimes.
What do you call a Hollywood writer with half a brain?
I was rather distressed to learn this afternoon that Hollywood, which is one of only two centers for mass media culture this country has (the other being, of course, New York City) finally has reached, in it’s senility, a state of dementia. True dementia.
What do I mean? I mean, of course, that Hollywood is producing two different movies at the same time…THAT ARE THE EXACT SAME THING.
There are currently TWO major re-vamps of the classic fairy-tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the works. Two separate casts, two separate directors, both boasting the same ‘edgy twist’ and both carrying about as much originality as a musical episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
One, called Snow White and the Huntsman, has Kristen Stewart, who we all know for her exquisite acting ability (for those of you who can’t catch on to the sarcasm there, you can go die now, please) attached to the titular role. No, stupid, as much as I’d be inclined to consider it, I mean, of course the role of the princess as oppose to the role of the huntsman. Directors of this one had been chasing after Stewart for the part for weeks. While I have no doubt they’re directors for a reason, I also have no doubt they AREN’T casting directors for a reason as well. Seriously, I wish I could be offered a Hollywood contract for blinking my eyes and looking like a heroin junkie.
In my high school she would’ve been told to put the razor down and get a boyfriend.
But sadly, my list of infinitive reasons for calling Kristen Stewart the Worst Professional Actress in Cinematic History is worthy of a post of it’s own. Let’s not stray from the topic at hand…
The other, called ‘The Brothers Grimm: Snow White’ has just casts Lily Collins as Snow White, and Julia Roberts has been cast as the Evil Queen since the project was basically conceived. Yeah, same deal. I’m not a Julia Roberts fan aside from Pretty Woman. She dyed her hair red for the part, so I HAD to support her on that one anyway.
*A-HEM…anywho…*
The past eight-or-so years, Hollywood has seemed to have this strange obsession with updating/re-vamping classic fairy-tales. Since 2003, we’ve had Cinderella, Snow White (yes, already), Cinderella (again), Hansel and Gretel, Beauty & and the Beast, and most recently, Little Red Riding Hood (shitty, just so you know. Don’t waste ten bucks and wait for the *legal* downloads to flood Pirate Bay). Most of these got the teen melodrama-flick treatment, and those that didn’t got the teen-goth treatment.
All of them sucked. And not just by my standards, but by most. The only movie I sort of approved of was Sydney White, because there’s always been something about that quirky Amanda Bynes that’s charmed me.
Then there’s the sub-genre of fairy tales-gone-awry that thrives on pushy prior-knowledge jokes that makes the skeptics roll their eyes. The only ones of this type that ever worked were Shrek and Shrek 2.
But in all honesty, this has got to stop. Truly, if Hollywood is relying on extremely formulaic re-done-to-death Cinderella stories starring tween stars (yeah, Stewart’s 22, but her fanbase sure ain’t), then frankly, it’s time for Hollywood to lay down and die quietly. Long gone are the days of Casablanca and Citizen Kane.
And if there is a God or Goddess, no one will even CONSIDER touching those.
I also don’t see the appeal of these remakes. We all know the stories. We were fed the spoilers for these movies from our highchairs. How many times must one remake Cinderella before it gets through our thick heads that the shoe fits and the poor waif and the rich prince get married? You can use highly-stylized editing techniques to make the film look impressive, and hell, you can even make clever modern-day conversions for the core details of the fable (i.e. poisoned apple = Apple laptop with a hacker’s virus installed). But at the end of the day, you still have a movie with a shitty, unoriginal concept. Therefore, you still are sub par.
I suppose the point of a movie isn’t necessarily to be given an original story to enjoy. If that were true, books would be obsolete (and yours truly would have committed suicide years ago). At the end of the day, anything goes with the crowd, as long as it’s entertaining and keeping you from cleaning the house for another two hours.
Not you. Get back in the kitchen and make me a chicken sammich and some waffle fries.
But still, it’s depressing to think that a whole industry has fallen so far as to resorting to the exact same movie being made twice in the same year. What, do they expect people to leave one theater and crave more of Miss White, and be motivated to theater-hop one door over to see the other movie? Is this some sort of conspiracy in an attempt to double-up on the cash intake?
If it is, then it’s stupid as hell.
In all seriousness, this wave of pretentiousness has to end. Hollywood isn’t fooling anyone with this, just like Kristen Stewart isn’t fooling anyone with that oh-so-talented lip-bite she calls ‘method acting.’ At the end of the day, I’d rather spend my $12.50 at Barnes & Noble to get the hardcover version of Grimm’s Fairytales instead. Yeah, I sound like a hipster saying this, but it’s the best bang for my buck and I’m not paying it to look at awful actors turning a classic story into a lame story about werewolf love.
I’m looking at YOU, whore.
Oy vey, I need to do a review soon. These pop culture-based rants are getting to be the same thing…any ideas?
Public Enemy #1: What You Need to Know About Rebecca Black
Know thine enemy, fellow readers, know thine enemy.
‘ARK Music Factory’ is an independent record label out in LA (aren’t they all in LA?) that will literally take any tween girl who’s daddy is rich enough to shell out the money, and writer her a song, record it as a purchasable single, and design/film a music video starring her. They call themselves an ‘indie’ music label, yet they seem to be anything but. In the past month alone, nearly ten of these rich-tweens-born-of-rich-daddies have found and exploited ARK for its resources. The music videos are posted to a youtube account.
From what I gather, this company took itself seriously, and never intended for any of these young girls to rocket to stardom with their first single. The song and music video was meant to be the start of a portfolio so the clients could later build a career or get into a good music university like Julliard or the Boston Conservatory. Realistic, yes? I can understand this idea.
Then this little runt came around:
Wednesday Addams’ Long Lost Twin?
This little girl is Rebecca Black, aged 13. She’s anorexic-thin, has a Lea Michele hairstyle, is a self-proclaimed sufferer of the worst disease since the bubonic plague (aka ‘Bieber Fever‘) and has all the personality of a High School Musical extra. In the past fortnight her single ‘Friday’ produced by ARK went from 400 youtube hits to over 40,000,000.
I think, for once, the hits have it right. Not because this song is catchy, interesting, or that Black has any hint of natural talent. It’s because the song is awful, poorly-conceived all-around, and Black has NO hint of any natural talent. The comments and reviews, professional and not, say it all. It’s official: Black and her ‘Friday’ song is a joke. A joke straight out of hell.
I would link you to the video itself, but it’s easy enough to find, and I will in no way endorse adding more hits to this disaster that cannot possibly be construed as ‘music.’ I also won’t go into the cavity-forming lyrics, which literally go through the days of the week and what order they come in akin to a Barney the Dinosaur number before talking about the TWEEN singer’s longing to ‘party’. I won’t describe the cheesy-as-cheddar music video, complete with classic 90’s MV cliches and mediocre directorial effort (and thirteen-year-olds drivings cars?). I would comment on Black’s god-awful singing voice, but the entire thing is so auto-tuned you can’t even tell what she sounds like. I have to convince myself no one sings like that naturally. It has to be computer synthesizers and tuning. All of it.
So what, may I ask, is the point of begging and crying like a spoiled brat until Daddy shells out 2 grand for an ‘original’ song when it isn’t even your natural voice on the audio track, your original lyrics, or by any means your own design?
Say it with me, people: FAME.
Congratulations, you get a cookie.
Once upon a time, music was an art form unto itself. It was to the ear as painting was to the eye. In the earliest days, musicians literally kept cultures alive through the songs, stories, and dances of their people. Later, musicians were some of the most revered people in society, trained for the sole purpose of entertaining nobility and royalty alike. In the first half of the 20th century, hell, the first three-fourths 0f the 20th century, musicians were celebrities for a reason. Not just any half-wit with a bank account could make it. Talent was key. The art was still art. Lyrics were poems, and melodies were the medium used to convey poetry to people. Songs gave courage to freedom-fighters, identity to lost souls, and voices to entire generations.
Now, they tell us that Sunday follows Saturday, and are tools used to get quasi-attractive, upper-class preteen girls a shot at bringing in more money than they already need.
The meaning of music is dying. And what it’s being replaced with looks more suitable as the DVD cover of an independent teen horror flick.
Mean Girls 3: Freddy vs. Lohan
I am literally insulted and offended just watching the damn music video, then seeing how much fame is following this girl around inside of a month. Because good or bad, fame is fame. Chicago taught us that.
In what warped universe is this monstrosity acceptable? And before you say ‘this one,’ let me just say I’m just as pissed at ARK for letting this happen as I am at Black for existing. This is abuse of the original purpose of ARK’ Music Factory.
No, this is a comedy. An unintentional farce. It has to be, and this is the only way I can see this abomination fitting into the realm of music with a purpose. After all, comedic musicians can be quite big too, and some are even witty, like Weird Al Yankovic or Richard Cheese. But alas, something about this tells me this is 110% serious music video with serious intent. If there were credits after the video, the vocal lessons were provided by Helen Keller.
Music itself changes all the time, and I can accept that. We had Amadeus Mozart, Louis Armstrong, The Beetles, Led Zeppelin, Green Day, Spice Girls, Green Day (again), and Lady Gaga. But what all of the aforementioned have in common is their music has/had a goal, even if it’s just to entertain or shock.
The goal of ‘Friday’ is solely for getting a face out there. That’s it. I see no other reason but to associate Rebecca Black’s face with something, good or bad, so she can get on TV. Oh, and the small satisfaction in getting off a good Helen Keller joke (see above).
And she did all of the above. Mission accomplished, okay? So, to my dear Rebecca Black: I’m sure you’re a spoiled, self-interested, shallow person in real life, but for our sakes, please shut up, stop ripping apart a millenia-old art form, and go back to middle school before lunch period ends.
Why I’m Not Married (You know, other than the fact I’m barely 22)
Ah, feminism! No, strike that.
Ah, women who claim to be feminists but clearly don’t know what they’re talking about!
People tend to see feminism in three different ways, from my experience. You have those who think feminism involves a bunch of angry butch lesbians yelling at state capitol buildings. You have the wiley career women who ‘don’t need a man to be happy. In fact, men are scum.’
Then you have me, who’s pretty average but simply likes the belief that women are equal to (NOT greater) than men. And I find that a pretty simple-but-blunt belief to have. It all comes down to one word for me: choices. Give women choices. Every choice a man has to make and every possible option he has should be the same for a lady. Just because our junk is different doesn’t mean we need to be stuck under a veil and made to pop out babies to feel important. Options, opportunities, whatever you call it, THAT is where I consider the root of my feminist beliefs. Plain as day.
So naturally, when I came upon a certain article by Tracy McMillain of Huffingtonpost.com that literally justifies why some thirtysomething women are unmarried by insulting them, I get a little miffed.
The gist of the article is that naturally, every woman WANTS to get married. But sometimes she can’t seem to figure out why she isn’t. Its plagued her night and day, and what it comes down to is: IT’S YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT! It’s not guys. It’s not your career. It’s not the fact that marriage just may not interest you, or that you’re a lesbian and are, sadly, legally not allowed…
IT’S BECAUSE YOU SUCK!
Literally, click on the link and read the article. You’ll find that our dear friend Tracy McMillian reasons that YOU (yes, YOU, behind the guy with the big nose) are not married (even though you obviously want to be, because you’re a single woman in your thirties) because:
A-You’re a Bitch
B-You’re Shallow
C-You’re a Slut
D-You’re a Liar
E-You’re Selfish
F-You’re Not Good Enough.
Each perfectly logical explanation more insulting than the last. I supposed this is supposed to pass for quirky-yet-wise irony. You know, because this dame says herself that she’s been married/divorced three times and therefore is perfectly qualified in giving marital advice.
Before I even begin my angry go-around, let me just say that my impression from this woman is yes, she considers herself a feminist. Her writing oozes ‘girl power’ in tones that went out when the Spice Girls broke up. She’s attempting to give woman-to-woman advice, so maybe her intentions aren’t all that shitty. But she still makes her case sound like it belongs in a Cosmo column from 1956, and it ultimately insults women way more than it answers their questions.
So, shall I break this down into categories and rip each section a new one individually? As my Improv Professor used to say: Yes! Lets! (Theater joke that probably went 10 feet over your head).
A- You’re a bitch.
McMillian’s delightful little way of saying ‘you’re angry, and men want to marry nice women.’
The way she expresses it in the article is that being ‘angry’ means being politically opinionated and openly expressing any sort of dissatisfaction you may have. She even sites Kim Kardashian as a GOOD example of the type of woman men want to marry (despite the fact it was a comparison made totally out of thin air and made no sense no matter how many times I read it).
Yeah, she’s not angry at all. She’s the one.
This demented little piece of advice straight from Betty Crocker quite frankly makes me MORE angry. Basically, don’t have a loud mouth, don’t have dislikes, and don’t let on that you’re a good debater until AFTER the wedding. If you dare say ANYTHING bad, no man will want to get within fifty feet of you or your big mouth. I guess the whole thing went to shit the minute I realized that THIS is what she means by ‘you’re a bitch.’ Men like quite, submissive bimbos who don’t get politically active or have strong opinions at all. I’m sure that’s why Michelle Obama’s not marri–OH WAIT A SECOND!
B-You’re Shallow.
Yeah, some women are shallow. Some women hold out for the handsome rich guy that only exists in Lifetime Movies. And they never find him. Some women do have highly unrealistic images in their mind that prvent them from giving real men a shot. I could ALMOST get behind this one…
…if it weren’t for the fact that shallowness is encoded into women’s DNA, so there’s a biological basis behind it.
There’s a very WELL KNOWN (TRACY!) study where women of different ethnicity, social standing, and appearance were given articles of clothing that were sweated in (ew) by men of the same variation of categories. It was seen that overwhelmingly, women said that the clothing that corresponded with their male equivalent in every way was best-smelling.
It’s basically an evolutionary trait that dates back thousands of years with the human race, developed for the purpose of sexual selection. It’s seen in many other species too. And McMillian is blaming women for that one too.
C-You’re a Slut.
Aka- ‘You sleep around and that fucks your judgment.’
The thing is, she uses science to back up THIS ONE, by claiming it’s all because of a hormone called oxytocin. If women sleep around too much, they’re going to lose focus of the whole marriage part.
Calling a woman who has lots of sex a ‘slut’ is enough to piss me off. Assuming that all women would prefer getting married to being a free lover makes me want to drop kick this lady.
I myself express less of an interest in marriage and would prefer living a free-love lifestyle (if that’s the way I was heading), or even just living with a partner without having to take the vows. It’s a strange idea to many, not at all traditionalist. But I guess it makes me a slut, because commitment isn’t the first thing that pops into my mind when I fuck somebody.
D-You’re a Liar.
Here, McMillian is saying you don’t want to scare guys off (I guess you’re not a bitch anymore) so you lie and say you don’t mind waiting as long as the partner needs to come around.
I’m not even touching this one. I could go on for pages on how ridiculously assumptive and Jennifer-Aniston-movie-ish this is.
Or Jim Carrey-ish. Take your pick.
E- You’re Selfish.
“If you’re not married, chances are you think a lot about you.”
That was VERBATIM! I am not kidding. Where do you get off saying that, Ms. McMillian? Is marriage the automatic transformation of a selfish bitch into a generous, subservient woman? Is it SUPPOSED to be and I just didn’t get the memo?
Seriously, she’s beginning to make marriage out to be this be-all end-all event that is meant to change free-loving hippie scum into Stepford Wives! In fact, I’m not even going to argue this. I’m just going to post what TRACY MCMILLIAN says and let you kick her ass yourself:
“A good wife, even a halfway decent one, does not spend most of her day thinking about herself. She has too much s**t to do, especially after having kids. This is why you see a lot of celebrity women getting husbands after they adopt. The kids put the woman on notice: Bitch, hello! It’s not all about you anymore! After a year or two of thinking about someone other than herself, suddenly, Brad Pitt or Harrison Ford comes along and decides to significantly other her. Which is also to say — if what you really want is a baby, go get you one. Your husband will be along shortly. Motherhood has a way of weeding out the lotharios.”
So far, ladies, if you’re not married, you’re a self-absorbed sex-crazed shrew. If you ARE married, then you’re having kids (duh) and finally a functioning member of society. Oh boy, I can’t fucking wait for the last one…
F-You’re Not Good Enough.
There you have it, ladies. You’re not married yet because YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
I know I could go in depth, but again, I don’t believe I will. In fact, I can sum up this whole thing with two words.
FUCK. YOU.
Tracy McMillian, no matter what you say, you are clearly not a feminist. Your ideas are warped and should be launched into space like Sputnik and never heard of again. You’re presumptive and extremely lacking in any idea that women have a CHOICE nowadays to not get married and have children. You’re saying that if you’re not married, something if very wrong with you and you should change yourself, get rid of all your political opinions (and sex partners) and woman-up to being a wife.
Because being a wife is what every woman dreams of.
Forgive me for not living in a Disney movie, Ms. McMillian, but your insults simply make me laugh in the end. Oh yeah, they make me angry too. Because I’m a bitch. Which means I’ll never get married.
Pity me, then. My life is over.
If I am what I eat, does that mean I’m nuts?
Forgive me, humble readers of my blog, for writing about what is on my mind today as opposed to what you care to read about, but I’ve been back at school for about a month now, and already I miss the little things I don’t get outside The Bubble that is my campus.
Like, food.
REAL food.
I know I’ve written in the past about how shitty my campus’ single dining hall treats its students and how limited the food choices can be. But it’s been especially limited in recent days to fried chicken smothered in heavy creams, soggy squash medleys, and mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms.
Mushrooms rank between televangelists and exercise on the mile-long list of things I hate. That’s in the top 20.
The past few days I’ve barely eaten at all, because the new BC I’m on is making me one look at Glenn Beck (#7) away from vomiting all over the room at any given point during the day. The Dining Hall is being so kind as to endorse my former food phobia, making my boyfriend nervous and sparking that dangerous way I use to obsessively count calories down to the single digits.
So at least there’s nothing in my stomach to vomit up, right?
But at the same time I’ve been experiencing what has become an annual event with me: the mid-winter What-The-Hell cravings. Last year it was for star fruit and dried mangoes. The year before it was honey-roasted peanuts. This year, it seems to be taking the form of grilled salmon. Fresh grilled salmon on top of a pile of basmati rice with toasty brussel sprouts and asparagus. Sweet, filling, good-for-you sustenance. The ideal salmon filet would have been grilled on a cedar plank with brown sugar on top (not too much, but just enough to add a little sweetness to it). The cedar plank I discovered this summer.
Forgive me while I go drool a little. Oh wait, I’ve got morning sickness, so never mind that. My point is, look at all the stuff I crave this time of year. Fresh, healthy, yet still mouth-watering things. My blue rice cooker can only give me so much pasta and Zatarains beans and rice (which is high in sodium anyway) before I want something other than quick carbs.
I’ve probably had the equivalent of one small steak’s worth of protein in the past two WEEKS. It’s clear in that I’m getting drowsier every day and how it’s getting harder to stay on the treadmill. I even experienced some chest-tightening and breathlessness during a workout I’d successfully and comfortably done for a few weeks the other day. I’m pretty nutrient-deficient right now. A lot of people are this time of year. But I get so pissed off when I can legitimately trace a lot of it back to the fact that my school’s dining hall forces me to resort to cereal for three meals a day.
I could logically buy my own food and cook it…but that’s just it. Like many college students, I have neither the time nor the talent to cook something like my salmon dream platter for dinner on any given night. Not to mention, the dorm kitchens lack the necessary sources (for instance, a GRILL) with which to make said items.
Also, I’m going to Hawaii in a month for Spring Break (!) so I lack the cash to be able to fund a quest for fresh fish and mushroom-less chicken soup (seriously, mushrooms belong in beef-flavored soups which I stay clear away from anyway). I’m stuck to crackers, cereal, and English muffins (with a little cherry jam for color/flavor).
And we can stop eating these things and let the Italian plumbers in the next castle over take care of them…
I think it sucks when you’re in my position. I have expensive/healthy food tastes but no means by which to satisfy them (at least while I’m at school). It’s the same with my fashion sense. I’ve always wanted a gorgeous gown that flatters my chunkish figure, but when I find one, it’s no less than 200 bucks.
My only other option is the Express Café, which the Dining Hall runs because the only coffee/sandwich shop in town inexplicably closes down for the winter. It has ready-to-heat food and parfaits and stuff, but it’s obviously just leftovers from yesterday put in containers and slapped with insane prices ($5.50 for a bowl of chicken and rice the size of a Wendy’s salad container). Students are given a credit card with a 100-dollar balance, but that does NOT last long, between the overpriced chef salads and exceedingly delicious raspberry-chocolate steamers (made with skim milk, so even I can have them!) that eat up my account.
Did I mention the Express Café used to be free with every meal plan? Not the case anymore. Good ol’ Wells! Exploiting it’s already-poor students for every damn penny their worth!
I know I already mentioned the fact that the lack of healthy food is extra-dangerous for someone like me who’s deathly afraid of regressing back into that which was this past summer’s calorie-obsessed hellhole. I’m fighting back the mindset, of course, with all the support I have backing me up.
But sometimes it isn’t enough.
Dear Wells College Dining Hall, Fuck you.
Fuck you for not listening to the students. Fuck you for being so obsessed with goddamned mushrooms and creamy bases that turn even asparagus spears into heart-attacks waiting to happen (they aren’t even GOOD creamy bases). Fuck you for putting out hamburgers every day but ignoring the requests that vegetarian options become more regular.
Most importantly, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you for starving me. Yes, I do, I fact, partially blame you. Signed, Me.
My Date with The President’s Daughter (A Review)
Disney just isn’t the same anymore.
I blame High School Musical for single-handedly bringing the once-glorious Disney Channel spiraling into awful tween-actors, cheesy sitcoms, and…geh…Miley Cyrus. It was really the first formulaic mind-numbingly awful film/show that basically had the eternal message of ‘Life can’t go wrong when you’re in high school! High school equals time of your life and don’t you forget it!’
Look at any DCM from the past five years and tell me all you see are obnoxious twentysomethings playing teensomethings having good old Christian fun ALL THE DAMN TIME! Apparently nowadays you can’t cram in any depth without losing the entirety of the bubblicious atmosphere Disney is famous for. That ruined a lot, and that’s why I am convinced it is the brainchild of Beelzebub.
That and the fact that I narrowly made it past the target demographic age for HSM when it came out. Luckiest break since I missed out on Zoey 101.
Believe it or not, in the late 1990s, Disney found a small, microscopic little niche where some depth CAN be added to the smiling WASP childrens’ silly antics and still earn a DC Seal of Approval. This was the era where such films as Smart House, Luck of the Irish, and, one of my favorites, My Date With the President’s Daughter, were born.
Let’s make an example of My Date, for instance.
The plot is highly simplistic, but then again, Disney’s gotten away with that for decades. Hallie Richmond is the titular daughter, a painfully-naïve sheltered girl (natural considering her circumstances) who just wants to go on a date. Her father seems to be loosely-based on George Bush Sr, and therefore, is highly conservative. Finally, he lets her go on a date with Duncan, a sweet but awkward dork she met while sneaking away from a stop on her father’s re-election campaign. Duncan steals his father’s BMW, sneaks away from the Secret Service with her, and the hijinks ensue, which include-but-are-not-limited-to: getting into a brawl at a club, putting on a magic show at a biker bar, showing up on TV, having the BMW stolen, running from Secret Service, having a romantic dance on a rooftop overlooking the city, and rescuing Hallie from some college biker douche who only pops up in the second act of the movie.
For it’s clichés and seizure-inducing late-90s artifacts (neon-light clubs, young guys thinking that dressing in 80lbs of leather is hot, fuzzy pink butterfly jewelry, etc.), the film has a lot that post-2005 Disney Channel doesn’t.
So dated it hurts. Stop it, 1998!
For one, the teen actors can act. Will Freidle as Duncan (Boys Meets World, anyone? *yes please!*) is just enough dork to be believable and lovably awkward, but has just enough hero/macho in him to make me feel tingly in certain places. Elisabeth Harnois plays Hallie, and gets the character just right enough so that I’m interested, but not annoyed with her naivety. Hallie is actually a typical teenage girl with as much intelligence as charisma, and while she isn’t a source for much of the humor, she’s still likeable.
Nowadays, you’d either get a gorgeous ‘insecure nerd’ like Vanessa Hudgens (who, for the record, I would gladly run over in my Park Avenue for free if the opportunity arose) or some stupid naïve girl who’s played solely for laughs like Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana.
The secondary characters are great too. I’m especially fond of Dabney Coleman’s President Richmond who can be just as adorable as he is intimidating.
Secondly, the teen characters aren’t fucking morons who are high on high school life. Duncan and Hallie both have their shallow hang-ups, but both are clearly aware of the world outside their minds. One scene that I consider to be the pivotal scene is where they meet a protest against Hallie’s father on the street, and Hallie stands up for her father, expressing that being the President doesn’t just mean spending taxpayer’s money. It’s more than smiling to the cameras all the time like a celebrity.
Political awareness in a sixteen year old? Madness! Blasphemy, I say!
You don’t count. You’re a whole different level of madness.
Thirdly, while the bulk of the movie does rely heavily on how much trouble can befall the poor, bumbling Duncan on his first date, it doesn’t depend on sight gags, prat falls, and childish jokes. The movie recognizes it’s audience as teenagers as opposed to eight-year-olds. And this makes sense, seeing as the main characters ARE, in fact, supposed to be teenagers.
In HSM, the main characters are the same age, but the insipid antics of the HSM crowd lead me to think Disney is assuming that teenagers are drooling idiots as opposed to young adults. They must, unless the key demographic is specifically stated to be ages 2-10 (in which case, why aren’t the main characters FUCKING EIGHT YEAR OLDS!?!?)
*Taking a deep breath* Okay, I’m back.
I’ll admit that the media is changing, attempting to fit the needs and wants of the youngest generation. But apparently Disney Channel takes that to mean ‘dumb down.’ My Date is a cute, intelligent, yet entirely innocent movie. It’s no Beauty and the Beast for sure, but it’s not supposed to be. There’s a fine line between innocence and idiocy that Disney has long since fallen out of touch with.
The Disney Renaissance is over, and there’s really no way of it coming back. *Le woeful sigh*
My Valentine’s Day Rant (hey, you knew it was coming…)
Let me tell you a little story about a sad, sad girl named Colleen…
Once upon a time, there was a sad, sad girl named Colleen.
She grew up in a not-so magical kingdom known as Culture-is-Outlawed Wasteland Suburbia (or COWS, now with 50% more right-wing conservatism!). It was a land where Image was King, Money was his Queen, and Reputation was Law (and Jesus his Manservant). For a sad, sad girl named Colleen, who possessed none of these qualities, high school was the bane of her very existence. She had her circle of allies, but beyond that, she might as well have been wearing a chicken costume to school every day. She was an outcast. No well-meaning male would dare come near her, and those who did were not only ill-meaning, but also the very definition of douchebaggery. COWS had very little to offer her.
One celebration COWS valued highly was that which fell on February the 14th, known as Saint Valentine’s Day. This was a day where paired (heterosexual) individuals were allowed to go burn their hard-earned monies on processed sugar, overpriced flowers, and tacky costume jewelry for their significant others, which, in COWS, was the only true way of expressing affection. The industries got a boost, and so did diabetes. Because nothing says ‘Je t’aime!’ as much as a bag of sugar-coated diabetes (disclaimer: the author of this tale is very pro-candy and is using this mockery in a purely sarcastic manner, in case any of you didn’t notice).
Colleen’s very few romantic exploits during this era never fell on this day. They would always bloom in late spring and dissolve by midsummer at the latest. She was never allowed her own bag of diabetes/candy, and her only tokens on this day would be dime-a-dozen Harry Potter paper valentine sentiments with silly puns and shiny paper from the biology teacher. Poor, sad Colleen.
So instead, she took matters into her own hands and gave birth to a tradition of her own, the Valentine’s Day Blood!Fest. Every year, whether by herself or with colleagues, she would pop in the goriest monster flicks and grosses of the Tarantino films and enjoy being independent. Cliched? Indeed. But it was a way to express the true meaning of Valentine’s Day: that some justice-of-the-peace was beheaded in Ancient Rome once. Blood!
She even carried this tradition to college with her, known as the land of Culturally Abundant Time and Space (heretofore known as CATS). She spread the word of the Blood!Fest and told COWS and their St. Valentine’s commercialist orgasm to shove it in their diabetes bags.
And Colleen lived happily ever after…
…until now.
This year, things are different. I have a significant other for the first time ever on the day of the Commercialist Christmas (you know, besides the…actual Christmas). I cannot participate in my own Blood!Fest this year and instead plans to spend the day with said significant other. He is bringing gifts for me and I have gifts for him too. We will exchange them, watch movies, he will cook for me, and do a lot of things I’ll leave to your imagination to guess.
Which begs to ask the question…am I a hypocrite?
Because even now, I stand by the fact that Valentine’s Day is a shameless exploit by the candy companies, florists, and Wal-Mart (because those bastards are always involved) to convince people to buy shit for their lovers to express their love for each other…because that’s the right way to do it in a capitalist society like ours.
Well, I can tell you right now, my guy and I have NEVER had a problem expressing affection, with or without presents and candy.
So really, if anything, the day should be spent like any other for us, right?
Well, I have to confess, I’m excited that I’m celebrating it this year not as ‘Single’s Awareness Day’ (a title which I have loathed since it was born). I’m excited that my boyfriend is coming down, giving me things, cooking for me, watching Battle Royale and Inglorious Basterds (old habits…*wait for it*…Die Hard) with me, and those ‘other things’ (hint: it starts with s and ends with –ex). It will be a wonderful change for sure.
But am I compromising my beliefs for enjoying it and celebrating the day with more than a glimpse of my Betty White calendar (more badass than you’ll ever be) and shrugging?
In my own defense, up until this year, I got a V-Day consolation package from my mother that had candy and a fluffy stuffed animal (I refuse to grow up. I will gleefully receive fluffy things until I’m 150). And this year I was home the week before so she just handed me my V-Day package to save on postage while I was home. So in all technicality, I was exploiting Valentine’s Day from a young age to begin with.
Maybe I LIKE the presents in spite of what day they are given on. I’ll happily accept free things given in a well-meaning manner on Ted Bundy’s Birthday if they were offered to me! I mean, people don’t look forward to their birthdays because it means they haven’t died over the past year…they love the parties, presents, and the attention! Maybe that’s my best defense yet. I was so deprived of all of that in my public education days. Maybe now that I can enjoy it at long last, I should make it the best ever.
Aaaaand now I sound like a capitalist pig.
But it’s the truth. I’m about to face the cold-hard reality of life on my own, working at a job that makes me consider suicide on a weekly, if not daily, basis, and the ever-looming threat of being forced to conform to society in site of what it may stand for in order just to survive in the dog-eat-dog world of America. The more fluff and candy I get now, the better. I need to live it up while I’m young and have a boyfriend who’s willing to buy me chocolate and roses.
Valentine’s Day, you may represent some stupid highly-marketable shit, but goddammit, I say we bury the hatchet for now. Treat me right and I won’t call you ‘Fucking Morons’ Day’ anymore. For once, I’m not going to spout hipster crap about you. Because I hate hipsters just as much as I hate you.
Except maybe this one…
Happy FUCKING Valentine’s Day, world! And Happy Mopey Blood!Fest Day all you singles! You deserve your fun/outrage too!
…and all was right with the world. At least until *cue ominous thunder crash*St. Patricks Day.
You fucking demons have your own rant coming…
…but liquor is quicker! (A Personal Entry)
Nostalgia is a silly little thing, isn’t it?
Physically extinct reminders, both wanted and unwanted, of our childhoods and distant pasts reflect on our simpler views of the world at the time. We call the various forms of these reminders nostalgia, and I have yet to meet someone who was able to resist its allure in one form or another.
And man, does it come in many forms.
Music, movies, television shows, fashion and clothing, world events, cars, celebrities, technology, even slang and verbal communication are all various manifestations of nostalgia. And these are just a few of the more general terms I could use. I suppose not all topics are to be treated equally by everyone. There might be a song that triggers a memory for one person that has no meaning for another, or a film where one person could recite every line from the time they were five (Beauty and the Beast for Yours Truly) and the second person hasn’t even seen. Nostalgia is as individual as people are. It comes to and affects people in different ways.
For me, it’s candy.
I’m pretty sure this is why I was moderately overweight from the fifth grade until about six months ago. I was truly a connoisseur of ninety-nine-cent confections in my day (adjusted for inflation). No chocolate bar was left unturned during my youth. It didn’t help that a simple fifteen-minute walk through the neighborhood from my house led me directly to a Kinney’s, where there was relatively cheap and unlimited access to a whole aisle of both seasonal and year-round candies. Hell, I only needed to cross one busy street to get there!
Not only does the smell, taste, and mere idea of the Ghost of Candies Past guide me back to those golden years of not caring about my weight (and they really were golden years to me, it meant one less worrisome burden that I had to carry then that I carry now), but the candy itself triggers memories whenever I eat them…if I can find them, of course. A lot of these treats are now either extinct entirely or can only be found on exotic candy sites that ship from India.
One of my personal favorites was the strawberry Charleston Chew. It was one of those candy bars I got at Kinney’s. Afraid of my mother’s scornful taunts that I didn’t need the extra calories (however true they were), I would refuse to take my kid purse and instead put the money in a pocket. I’d go out under the ruse of going for a walk (looking back, Mumsie must have known what I was doing all along) and start my journey in the hot summer sun.
I didn’t care that it was hot as I wandered through the woods behind the nearby school that led me into the other side of the neighborhood. I knew the prize at the end was always worth it. And damn, that Charleston Chew never failed me. For a dollar left over from my ‘paycheck’ mowing my Grandmum’s lawn, my taste buds were given the cheap-but-delicious satisfaction they’d been waiting for all week.
Fuck. Yes.
On the way home, after I emerged from the woods behind the school, I’d divert from my usual path to swing in the twilight on the playground, greedily chewing away the minutes until I had to go home to another one of my mother’s attempts to drop a few pounds off my sister and I (usually grilled chicken salad).
Those were the days.
Fortunately, Charleston Chews still exist, even the strawberry ones. So occasionally, I can still find a Kinney’s and relive those carefree summer days again. They remain to this day one of my all-time favorite candy bars.
Unfortunately, like many forms of nostalgia, many of my old favorites are now extinct and condemned to Vh1’s I Heart the 90s Part Deux.
Take, for example, the Wonder Ball.
The whuh?
The Wonder Ball. Bitches.
This candy was too awesome for words, especially to a ten-year-old mind like mine. For those who can’t remember the days of Wonder Balls, or never heard of them to begin with, imagine this: combining two of the best things to happen to children in the late 90s (Nestle and Disney) into a 2oz spherical masterpiece in shiny foil paper. This confection had the equivalent of about two Hershey kisses-worth of chocolate, but it wasn’t even the chocolate that made the candy epic. It was the fact that peeling away the thin chocolate shell revealed a foam ball you popped apart, which, in turn, revealed a small Disney figurine. And these figurines could be of absolutely ANY Disney character past or present.
This was not the Wonder Ball. This was the predecessor, the Magic Ball.
However, due to the combined effort of grown-ups who are too stupid to tell their children not to swallow the plastic thing inside their candy, as well as the grown-ups who get off on taking the happiness away from small children, the Magic Ball was declared a hazard and taken off the market. It was replaced a few years later by the Wonder Ball, which, instead of a Disney-figure inside the thin candy shell, contained a few Disney-shaped Sweet-Tarts and a Disney Sticker inside the box.
Despite the fact that it contained the same net amount of candy as a fun-sized Snickers Bar, it was still awesome. It was the only thing I wanted when the family went for Sunday-afternoon grocery shopping. I would pit my mother against my grandmother when I went to stay with the latter on some weekends, and convince her to let me have a treat from the Wegmans even if Mum wouldn’t allow it (and Grandmumsie always took my side, bless her).
And screw the candy! It was that damned sticker I wanted!
I collected the stickers like nobody’s business and stuck them to my door (much to my parents’ anger…at least I lived in the basement where few would see my acts of pre-vandalism). I think at the peak of my infatuation with the Wonder Ball, I had about 50 or 60 different stickers on that door. One of the best parts was that repeat stickers nearly never happened. I think I only had one or two sets of repeats total. I grouped them by film and had an ongoing contest to see which Disney movie had the most stickers. The winner always suspiciously kept changing to be the most recent Disney movie to come out (what a surprise, yes?).
Then, woe came in 2004, the summer I turned fifteen (Jesus, really?). Some douchebag snooty small-name company bought out the Wonder Ball brand name from Nestle. And put the Wonder Ball permanently out of production. Fuckers.
Instead of blubbering senselessly and wondering why someone would bother buying a brand just to stop it from being enjoyed world-over, I found around that time my candy tastes matured. I still bought strawberry Charleston Chews and some of my other old favorites. But I was becoming a fan of Riesen truffles (my new personal favorite), Godiva, and Lyndt. The days of cheaply processed sugar lay behind me, and I became a woman that summer…at least in the taste-buds department.
*Reverent Sigh*
Nowadays, my waistline means more to me than sugar comas (sadly), and I haven’t touched a strawberry Charleston Chew or Riesen since entering college nearly four years ago. Willy Wonka would be so ashamed.
Maybe one day I’ll find my passion for candy once again, and I’ll stumble upon a Charleston Chew or bag of Riesens, or even a packet of Gushers! Then I’ll walk out of the woods behind the old elementary school, another mission successfully completed, and sit on that swing set, chewing away the minutes before going home to a grilled chicken salad my mother made for dinner.
The View from the Cubicle: Part III (The Lunch Hour)
Mean Girls is not the best film I’ve ever seen, and its’ humor has worn off for me over the five years since its release. But I’m afraid I must make a reference to it when beginning to discuss the typical lunch hour in The Corp’s universe-with-a-universe.
If you’ve seen the film, remember the scene where the different cliques sat in the lunchroom, and how each one had its own language and exclusivist philosophy? You don’t think you’d find that in the adult world, especially in a business, would you? Well, The Corp has it, perhaps even worse so than the movie.
The lunchroom is pretty small itself, but there are still three small clusters of chairs and tables, allowing for some moderate clique-ing to occur. As with the popular girls in Mean Girls, the ‘best table’ is occupied by the pretty young executive assistants, who are not only the most physically attractive but also possibly the most anorexic. Meat, dairy, and anything that isn’t organic and full of chlorophyll and vitamin C is the enemy, and if you take out a sandwich with anything but hummus inside, you will be asked how often you go to the gym, no exceptions. Needless to say they are all a size 8 or under. If you try to sit with them, they glare at you, and their neatly-lined eyes stare deep into your soul and make your heart burst into a mushroom cloud of terror. This is hardly an exaggeration, by the way. They did give me a death glare when I attempted to sit with them.
The young men are allowed to sit with them, even though they receive not smiles but eye rolls when they take out their roast beef subs and bags of chips. But if they are young and handsome, I suppose the ill-conceived mating rituals of the beautiful people are not to be wasted, even during a work day.
The second table is more often than not occupied by the older women, whom I call with affection ‘The Old Maids.’ No, they are not maids by any means. Most aren’t even over 50. It is more a statement concerning their gossip-y mannerisms and lighthearted chatter that reminds me of the dratted Pick-a-Little Ladies from The Music Man. From what I gather, the ladies who sit here don’t have children, are divorced, or lack in the family department by some other means. They only have each other and their perpetually running squawk boxes to keep them going. They are amusing, though. But it is too tiring to attempt to dive into their conversation at any given point.
The third table is the most mellow, the most abundant in food, and also the most accepting. This is the table I have been welcomed to sit at, and this table is filled by the 30-something women with families. But it’s a much more diverse table than that. These ladies also have their share of office gossip, but their conversation always somehow route around back to their children. I, of course, cannot participate when the topic comes to antics of one’s offspring, but somehow I am integrated into the course of conversation once again when the tide of silly things my three-year-old-does ebbs once again. It usually lasts a few minutes at most.
Older men eat in their offices, not willing to take any of this shit.
Another interesting thing to note is the dynamic of food choices in the lunchroom at these three tables. Table A (the beautifully mean anorexics), as I mentioned before, lives off of rabbit food and complains how being 110 ponds is somehow fat.
Table B (The Pseudo-Old Maids) aren’t always overweight, but they will eat Lean Cuisines and salads as well, sometimes adding a pudding cup or bag of chips into the mix.
Table C (everyone else in the room) will practically have a potluck going. Lady One will bring wheat thins and carrots along with her leftovers from last night, Lady Two will come bearing wafer cookies, Lady Three will have a bag of ten-or-so Clementine oranges to pass. It’s a veritable picnic, and everyone gets their share. For everyone’s base lunch that they keep for themselves, it’s usually a standard sandwich or leftovers from last night’s family meal.
The hour goes by quickly and without much event. The groups generally stay to themselves, only to interact awkwardly when the battle for the microwave begins.
Believe it or not, there is nothing much to say regarding the daily battle for the microwave. It’s pretty normal, a first-come-first-serve basis. The awkwardness when a 250-lb Pick-A-Little skids in front of a bitchy anorexic to microwave a Lean Cuisine, and subsequent snickers from the anorexics is the closest you get to clashing.
Alas, would I were able to bring my loyal readers more from the lunchroom, but this is all I have to offer for today. For lunch time is over, and it is time to get back to the cubicle.
The View from the Cubicle: Part II (The Pre-Lunch Slump)
The morning is a busy, yet somewhat solemn time in The Corp’s HR Wing.
Energy is naturally low, though this doesn’t hinder most of the employees from doing their job. But there is an almost depressing tone to the atmosphere. The day is long, and it has barely begun.
After that first hour where little is going on, output slowly slopes to a morning climax by about 10:30. During these hours the only social interaction goes on between some of those who rank above us proletariat cubicle-hermits, like the heads of the departments, who will sneak into each other’s private offices to gossip and sample each other’s candy dishes in a way similar to kids sneaking into each other’s bedrooms after their parents go to sleep to listen to the radio and watch TV (I never did this, I promise).
Speaking of, you can always tell what kind of executive you’re dealing with simply by looking in their candy dish. A pretty porcelain bowl holding hard candies probably belongs to a woman, older, kindly but serious. A plainer bowl with lemonheads or fireballs will inevitably be a male’s, probably younger and ‘hip’, or if it is a female executive’s, she will be pretty lax. Fun-sized brand-name candy bars mean the executive is also relatively easygoing, but will mean business when something serious comes up. Lack of a candy dish means the executive is either very stern, or very skinny.
You can also tell who’s been working at The Corp longer by what they wear as they walk around throughout the day. Men pretty much dress all the same: slacks (either khaki or black), business shoes, and dress shirts (white or blue, with a few exceptions), and whether or not they wear a tie is a 50-50 event for the day. Those who wear ties more often than not are more likely to be veterans of The Corp.
Young women wear grays, neutral tones, and blacks, usually with black slacks more often than skirts. The older the woman gets, the more colorful her shirts get without losing the professional edge. Lots of floral and paisley prints can be seen on the matronly women in each department. I suppose this is what is referred to as ‘corporate casual’ but I can hardly take a woman seriously if her shirt looks like it would have a 3D image pop out if I crossed my eyes.
Yet this would be the mark of a woman who has been with the company a long time and feels comfortable flaunting her rather unfortunate fashion choices. She is to be respected.
As lunch hour draws nearer, time slows. Workloads decrease slightly. The prospect of the half-way point of the day gets exciting. Motivation drops and more social conversations erupt throughout the room. Notably, the executives retreat to their own desks and begin making phone calls or doing their own business. Most have the later lunch hour of 1-2PM, so they aren’t as chatting now as the rest of us worker-bees.
It’s almost as if the employees are just waking up mentally, and the energy increases in the room. This isn’t to say most don’t like working, and most have had a 15-minute break in the hour between 10-11AM. More and more of the lower-ranked employees choose this time to file, as they are finally motivated to get onto their feet.
The dynamics in the wing are much different than two hours ago. It’s as if the day begins here at 11AM. Ironic how the time of day that promises a rest from work gets people willing to work, as well as spreads the energy that motivates the tired to wake up and work.
Maybe it’s just one of the great mysteries of life.
The View from the Cubicle: Part I (The First Hour)
Before I even take you into the mysterious realm beyond the front desk of The Corp, I must submit my first evidence that proves the existence of a hierarchy in the system: the parking lot.
Of course, you have the parking-space system first and foremost, and parking in a reserved spot results in banishment to the nether regions of the Lucky Seven Deli across the street. Two rows, separated by an island of grass, line the south side of the building. The front row is strictly for visitors and executives (as well as their assistants). The back is for…everyone else. The center sections of both rows are for the highest in command, as they provide the most direct route to the front door. The further out you get, the lower on the totem pole you are.
It should be noted right now, that these rules are simple how it is done. It isn’t like they’re in the handbooks or anything. They just…are.
It goes without saying that the corner is my spot. I am the lowly intern, the serf, the proletariat on whose back the company rests.
But even more telling than the parking spot is the parked car itself. The lowest-ranked have the crappiest cars, which makes sense, as the lowest-ranked are the lowest-paid. My old beater of a vehicle (affectionately named The Puma) is also the only car in the entire lot with bumper stickers (‘Practice Compassion’ and ‘Crazy Cat Lady’). Bumper stickers must be undignified.
The best cars, though, are not belonging to the executives or their assistants, but the ‘young professionals’ who answer the phones in human resources. The execs have nice, small, conservative cars, or family-mobiles like Station Wagons. The ‘young pros’ are still cocky enough to want something flashy, but make just enough to be able to afford them, not to mention they have no children to cart around.
The walk from the lot to the front door is perilous in winter, to say the least. At least here in New York State. This is why the center spots are so coveted. With women in their black heels and men in their dress shoes, an icy parking lot is more dangerous than licking a light socket. Well, ok, maybe not more dangerous than licking a light socket. More like doing a shot of Tide. Ok, maybe not that either…
…it’s still dangerous.
Between trying to stay balanced while walking on ice in four-inch stilettos, while looking out for skidding cars trying to nab the centermost parking space available to their caste, hopefully it’s a little easier to imagine why the parking system is so anal and uptight. The adventure, which would take about forty or fifty seconds from my parking spot at the edge of the lot on a clear summer’s morning, takes nothing short of two minutes on a day like this. Of course, on this particular day I was lucky. No ice, just a light dusting of snow, enough to be slippery but not enough to freeze your toes inside your shoes.
Through wind and ice and snow I walk, holding onto my lunchbox and purse, finally making it step-by-step to the front door, where I am greeted by a blast of warmth and a beacon of hope coming from the front desk. The receptionist, Kathy *, is the unsung heroine of my story here at The Corp. Ever cheerful, ever endearing, and always ready with a greeting and a bowl of spearmint Lifesavers, Kathy is my first reminder in the morning that life in a cubicle or behind a desk doesn’t have to rob you of your pride or happiness. But more on her later.
From the way things are locked and hidden away within the building, you’d think The Corp was hiding the Hope Diamond somewhere within its walls. As a temp, I have no ID badge, and an ID badge is what one needs to scan into the system in order to access entrance to any of the suites. I, being in Customer Service/Human Resources, have my setup in that wing. Kathy can let me in from her desk. All suites are connected through a hallway in the back, so logically, once you’re in one wing, you have access to anywhere in the building for all of business hours. But often as I sit covering for Kathy during her breaks, I notice people taking the time to cross in front of the front desk, and dig out their ID badge to re-scan themselves into the other side merely to relay a message or deliver a file.
Maybe it makes them feel important. At least it must make them feel superior to me.
The Corp’s business hours are 8-5 Monday through Friday. One hour longer than your standard. However, even arriving ten minutes late, you see that not one person in the HR Wing is working. No phone calls. No typing checks into the system. It’s as if the more standard 9-5 mentality pulses through the cubicles, sucking all the early-morning motivation out of the room. The employees take the first hour as a pre-work break.
They can all be found hovering around the pool of liquid ambrosia known as the Keurig Coffeemaker. It should be noted that if you don’t drink, coffee, tea, cocoa, or some sort of hot beverage at this time and yet insist on staying in the break room, you might as well be wearing a chinchilla on your head.
The conversation waxes and wanes as all conversations between groups do, and oftentimes there is no one discernable conversation. This is one of the few times good acquaintances can talk, so many times four or five conversations may be going on at once in the break room at this hour. No one sits. They need to be ready for a quick getaway should the boss-man come walking in and accuse the nearest person of laziness.
There are only two topics of conversation whether there is one group or fifteen: weather and sports.
If you attempt to bring up a topic that is in any way personal, like home life, children, what you did last night, or your plans for the weekend, you are suitably ignored, and the rest of your party will more than likely switch the topic. Sports and weather are safe, general topics. At 8:15 in the morning, no one gives a hell about anything personal about anyone. Even themselves. This unspoken rule is vital if you don’t want to be shunned by your co-workers and subsequently gossiped about during lunch.
A typical conversation around the Keurig in the first hour may go as thusly (an actual example I’ve overheard):
Man: So, did you see the Giants’ game last night?
Woman: Yeah, can’t believe the Eagles pulled it off. They were behind and everything!
Man: Michael Vick’s back, man. Eli should not have let that go.
Woman: Shame. He looked so good in September.
Man: I know.
Vague. Short. A monkey could contribute. Very typical. It’s all most of their brains are willing to cope with until they can get a rhythm of sorts going and get blood pumping to their social perception centers.
And with this, another day working for The Corp begins.
One last note: no executives are to be seen until their standard entrance time of 10:20AM. No one argues or thinks twice.
*Names throughout this mini-series will be changed for the sake of anonymity.
The View from The Cubicle: Introduction
There should be an entire science devoted to office life. And that’s not sarcasm, I totally mean it.
As a full-time intern for the month of January for what will remain an unnamed corporation, I have witnessed a lot of little strange happenings in my three-weeks thus far. What will I see in my three weeks to come? Let’s fine out together, shall we?
I’m well aware this sounds like a boring parody of the feature article in a National Geographic. When people think ‘cubicle’ they will sooner picture a solitary hold in Shawshank before the generous space I use in my day-to-day operations for the company (which will henceforth be referred to as ‘The Corp’ for the sake of anonymity and the fact that I can’t afford to have them upset with me if I say something off-color).
But, in reality, the sociology behind the desk and around the Keurig (because water-coolers are SO passe) are almost as in-depth as the sociology of a school or a public space. It’s amazing the cliques that form, the conversations that go on, and the unsaid rules that apply in both dress and manner. The plethora of cutthroat employees and militant executives runs rampant…and I’m here to give you the official untold story of the standard office experience.
I’ve lived it, and now you must suffer alongside me.
I’m dividing this mini-series into several posts, to be divided by the ‘four quarters’ of the day:
A: The First Hour
B: The Pre-Lunch Slump
C: Lunchtime/Early Afternoon
D: The Last Hour
So strap yourself to your awesome swively-chair and hang on to your timesheets, kids! It’s going to be one fascinating ride. This I promise.
Six Witty Observations: On-The-Way-To-Work Edition
1. Waking Up. Closing your eyes and waking up to your alarm should be two distinctly separate activities, divided by an interval of five hours or more. Today, they seemed to be apart by mere seconds. Hello grogginess, thy name is 6:30 AM (to the tune of Wilson Phillip’s ‘Hold On’ in all it’s ironic glory).
2. Passports. Apparently, I need the proper travel visas in order to make a left out of my driveway. School buses, cars, trucks, even a crazy punk riding a bicycle wouldn’t allow me to leave my own house for a solid six minutes (I kept track, amazing as it was in my grogginess). I think my papers expired last week when I went to pick up milk.
3. Traffic Lights. The New York State Traffic Authority is accusing me of being a communist sympathizer, and I know this because every single stop light from home to work turned a bright red as soon as they saw me coming. I think I’m being watched.
4. Weather Conditions. Mother Nature is a hard ass in Central New York. Her windy tufts of dandruff swirling slowly about the road apparently tempt drivers to not only speed up, but poorly parallel-park on the sides of narrow back roads, rendering a two-way exchange on said road nearly impossible. But that’s silly. Mother Nature would do nothing to hurt us…like allowing these insane jerks to live. She’s simply attempting to speed up the process of natural selection.
5. Time Travel. My car officially out-awesomed the TARDIS. When I left my car in the parking lot at my workplace, it was 7:58. When I entered the building after a walk of approximately 15 seconds, it was already 8:09. How DID I do it?
Which, when combined, brings me to…
6. I left the house 10 minutes early, yet arrived at work 10 minutes late. Well, fuck me.
There will be a longer, more meaningful post soon. Sorry I haven’t updated in so long. I’m planning something great for when I stop being lazy and write it.
And Now For Something A Little Different…
As you probably have deduced by my previous blog posts and the overarching themes my posts tend to always circle back to, I tend to stick to media quirks and media-related subjects in my writing and thought processes. And why not, when it’s something that both fascinates me and pisses me off royally? Write what you know…or, rather, not what you KNOW, but what you feel, at least.
Today, I wanted to write something different, but had no ideas. I found a charming little list of blog topic suggestions written by a fellow blogger from the opposite corner of the blogger’s realm. Blog, blog, bloggidy blog, just to add the word in a few more times for good measure.
Anywho, he listed 100 blog topic suggestions. And damned if 75 of those 100 weren’t media-related. Social media, global politics and media, media this and that. So, while I’ve accepted that I feel like I can’t wholly back away from my standard media-rant postings, I can, however, take them in a different direction. Instead of picking on a modern media concept and rip it to shreds, or take a specific person, place, film, or book and rip IT to shreds, I’m going to apply it to a very personal subtopic: guilty pleasures.
Essentially the opposite of what I like talking about, guilty pleasures are those little things that EVERYONE has in some form or another that they are quite fond of, but alas, are ashamed for one reason or another to talk about. Maybe it’s because their friends are a group of pretentious hipsters who’ll ditch you for liking something mainstream, or it’s because your friends ARE mainstream and will ditch you for liking something ‘oddball.’ For me, it’s neither. I can’t really pinpoint why my guilty pleasures are my guilty pleasures, but I guess I can attribute some of them to the idea that not many of my friends would see me as someone who buys into half this shit period. Yes, I, who wails on Disney, tells MTV to go to hell, and rolls her eyes whenever some media-standard ‘hot person’ tries to sell me tampons, toothpaste, or deodorant (except the guy on a horse), do, in fact, secretly enjoy some very media-approved films, music, and activities.
Today, I am coming out of the closet. I will state my case and reveal, for the very first time, five of my innermost guilty pleasures that I’m not sure many people, if ANY people, know about. I will say WHY I like them, but I will not make a defensive case FOR them. Just because these media brainchildren indulge my interests behinds closed doors does not mean that I think they’re quality entertainment or intellectually stimulating. You can adore something and still think it’s crap. And some of these guilty pleasures of mine are, indeed, crap.
Oh, and yes, I really like these things. If anyone has a problem with that, then they can go take a long walk off a short cliff.
*Taking a deep breath* Here we go…
1- Biographies and Memoirs of currently-living celebrities. I was one of the first people to jump on the bandwagon and openly express my annoyance that Justin Bieber, who is possibly in the running to set the record as the oldest pre-pubescent superstar in history, was penning a memoir at the age of sixteen. Oh, and a biopic film. I thought that was just ridiculous as hell.
But not every celebrity is a shallow image-riding piece of tabloid-fodder. Believe it or not, some are actually people who think as normal humans do, ans see their job as just that, a job. I know I stated this in my mega rant at Taylor Swift, but that’s something I do admire, and it’s the memoirs of these people, who tell their stories as if they’re telling us about their day around the dinner table, that I just love. Currently I’m thumbing through a chapter a night of John Barrowman’s first autobiography, Anything Goes (It also helps when I love the celebrity who’s the subject of the book. And if I believed in a male god, he would be John Barrowman). Of course, a lot of Anything Goes is the story of his coming-out and his life fighting the anti-gay crap that’s always floating around. But it’s also about his family, his husband, and his dogs! I mean, he wrote a lot about his everyday life, and while that would be boring to most people, I really enjoyed it.
I enjoy a lot of these. You don’t have to be dead to have a great biography. Just have the soul of a storyteller, and you’re good to go. And if you’re a genuinely good actor, you’ll have the soul of a storyteller. Still, Justin Bieber telling us of the infinite wisdom I’m sure he has in his sixteen years is too extremely stupid for even me to grasp.
2- American football. AND hockey. I’m not going to take a long time to justify this one. In my case, it’s really a matter of two worlds colliding. I am an indie artist to the core, and yet professional sports not only entertain me, but my parents were both athletes, my boyfriend is an athlete, and a few of my friends actually watch sports with me sometimes. Football and hockey have been a part of my existence since birth. Its something you would not expect a drama geek like me to enjoy, but I do. And not just for the strapping young lads in tight knickers throwing balls around. Some people would be surprised to find that a lot of thinking and strategy goes into these games. Unlike high school, your standard dumbass wouldn’t be able to make it too far into the pros. I appreciate that sports can, in fact, be an exciting form of entertainment.
I’ll keep watching, and you can’t stop me. So there.
3- 80s and 90s Teen ‘Dramas.’ This applies to both movies and TV serials. In a way, I’m cheating by saying this is a guilty pleasure of mine, because I don’t always take pleasure in watching shows like Saved by the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210, or movies like Teen Witch (all examples, for the record, I find flat-out silly). I watch them more for the fact that every episode is like a bad social experiment I’m trying to unravel. I could write an entire book on how insulting the media is to young adults, and yet the core demographic for these programs and films are the young adults that are consistently mocked and/or overdramatized. The casts mainly consist of middle to upper-class white teenagers from relatively good homes who either set out to conquer the world with their strange quirks and chain pot-smoking, or make their really quite random and/or whiny problems out to be the end-all of existence.
I also like watching the effects these shows have on their core demographic. It’s like a half-hour hypnotizing session you get for free over the airwaves. Shows and films that oversimplify the teenage experience tend to alter the minds of their audience, if they’re aware of it or not, and changes their priorities. For instance, as a twelve-year-old, I thought very little of romance until I was hooked onto That 70s Show, where every teen character was hooking up with one another, and these pairings provided the backbone for most of the plot for the series. After, I couldn’t wait to get a boyfriend. It was all I thought about for a long time. What kind of person would I have turned out to be had I used those formative years of my youth to obsess over something other than the sex I was attracted to? Would I have taken up rocket science? Biochemistry? Law? I guess now I’ll never know.
But for what they’re worth, teen dramas, especially those from the campy 80s and the grody 90s are fascinating (sometimes) and like watching a car wreck. You don’t want to, but you can’t help but stare, and by then, it’s too late. I think now that the nostalgia factor is kicking in with a lot of these, they’ll also take on the fossil effect, making their popularity rise again.
4- Life in a Northern Town (by Dream Academy). This is about as specific as you’re going to get with me on this topic, and here’s why: this song is one I will literally put on Window Media Player in a loop and have it play nine or ten times when I go to sit down and write something. It’s not a particularly incredible song that leaves you in tears, like practically anything by John Lennon, but there’s some quality to the song that I can’t put my finger on that keeps me listening over, and over, and over, and over. And a lot of people have this song, but for most people their repeat song is something more pop-ish, or catchy, or mainstream.
This song is none of those. I can’t even really put a genre to it (um…80s?). It’s something that you’d hear on one of those old ‘Pure Moods’ albums. And I also don’t just put it on for background music. I will sometimes lose track of my writing when the song gets to a particular place and focus just on the song itself, and this will be the fifteenth time in a row without a break I’ve listened to it in this sitting alone. Call me weird, but Life in a Northern Town is just…my song.
But not the remake. For the record, the remake blows.
And, probably the biggest reveal/shock of all..
5- Lady Gaga.Yes, my friends, I am a Lady Gaga fan. Some of her songs, while not necessarily great pieces of music, are highly catchy. But why I’m such a fan of hers is her balls. Yes, my friends, her balls. She’s got guts coming out the whazoo. She’ll put on a suit of red meat and go claim her Grammys. She’ll shoot a music video surrounded by a bunch of half-naked dancing Hitlers. And she does it all to simply be a testament to the weird. She lets the critics step all over her and shrugs them off, because at the end of the day, she does it all for her causes.She’s vocal about her issues and even treats her fans humanely. That’s nothing short of admirable.
The woman has genuine singing talent, as evidenced by early videos of her performing, but she doesn’t let her career unfold through her talent, but her image, which, sadly, is how one gets ahead in the music biz these days. If the just were true and image was nothing and talent was everything, Justin Bieber would still be a nobody, and Clay Aiken wouldn’t have dropped off the face of the planet. But the Gaga is smart and bends the media to her will. And unlike most of Hollywood, she uses her forces for good.
And with that, ladies and germs, is where I leave you. Before this post gets any longer.
I Need to Stop Worrying and Love the Swift
I think it’s safe to assume that President Obama has been kicked out of office, and America is now being ruled by a cute, blonde, songwriting overlord. I see her in more places than I can possibly fathom. I hear her name in more places than anyone should be allowed to hear it. She’s awful and awfully brilliant. Either that or her publicist is the same one Jesus had.
I think you all know I’m talking about her. –>
Her blue, consistently-scowling eyes judge you from the cover of People every third month. Her music fills your ears with semi-sweet nothings about all of the douchebags she plowed through in the past year. She is an infection that even amoxicillin and/or hiding out in Siberia can’t cure.
She, my readers, is Taylor Swift. The media’s sweetheart. And I am damn sick of her.
She’s Entertainer of the Year for the second year in a row, and while last year she may have deserved it, I cannot understand how the bloody hell she won it for 2010. Her latest album only came out two months ago. Her one film role of the year was in an ensemble drama (that, by the way, was a sad attempt by Hollywood to re-create the much funnier/better-written British film Love Actually). She doesn’t entertain outside of cut a CD per year and tour. She does not have the shock value of Lady Gaga or the tragic teenage-downfall backstory of Lindsay Lohan.
She is in the tabloids more often than not for her many, many month-long relationships with every imaginable teen heartthrob in Hollywood (discounting Rob Pattinson, who prefers the crack-addict look to the pseudo-virginal Southern blonde anyways). She and (insert name here) will go on a few coffee dates, make it onto the cover of People again, and be broken up by the time the moon is full again in some messy way that you’d see more frequently on a teen soap opera. And how does she bounce back from every single one? She writes a song that makes it onto her album.
The moral of the story? Don’t date Taylor Swift, boys…and girls…and humans.
I’m sure she has a stellar personality (don’t they all?), but frankly, other than her poor-me relationship history, I find her to be exceedingly bland. She can sing, yes. But other than a grand old country-warble and the idea that she does, in fact, write her own music (a rarity), she offers little to no entertainment value. The songs she writes, when they aren’t about her most recent boy-toy, are basically Swift trying to paint herself as a 21-year-old wise-woman with all of this world experience about life and love. It all frankly makes me want to vomit.
And yet the girl is everywhere (and dating everyone)! I was watching my local news this morning, like I do every morning, and the first news story I see isn’t about the latest murder downtown or the price of gas. It was about how Taylor Swift rang in the big 2-1 in Nashville.
On my local news station. The one place I can safely say this media overlord does not belong.
And I find it to almost be proof to why so many people thing society in America is collapsing. For it is a sad, sad day indeed when the top news story on your local station is how Taylor Swift celebrated her birthday this year. It really makes a part of me want to cry.
Celebrities and media stars certainly have their place in our society: on our iTunes playlists and movie screens. I still feel that this constant insistence upon knowing their every move and their every romantic interest is not only overbearing to them, but completely irritating to the rest of us who aren’t interested. And really, who needs to know that Taylor Swift is dating a man ten-years her senior? Who gives a flying fuck?
In Japan, movie and music stars are seen as not two-bit tabloid fodder and after-work gossip at the gym. They are seen as artisans who excel in their craft. That is who they are, and people leave them the hell alone. They will come out for awards ceremonies and promotional purposes, but you don’t see eight-hundred pictures of Tatsuya Fujiwara coming out of a coffee shop with his girlfriend…
*Which is a real shame. There really can’t be enough photographs of this man.*
Why can’t America stop getting all up in our celebrities’ business? Will we ever learn that they really are no big deal, and that their obligation to write music, smile for the camera, and give us a temporary leave from our normal, boring lives is nothing but their JOB, much like the common mechanic’s job is to smile while changing your tires, and we shouldn’t be revering them as gods any more than said mechanic?
I honestly have no answer to this question. You tell me.
The Top 5 Worst Christmas Songs and Why I Hate Them
Christmas carols have a bipolar effect on me. A few bring up some intense sentimental memories for me, like ‘Angels We Have Heard on High,’ and ‘Silver Bells.’ Most, however, make me want to shoot down Santa’s Sleigh with a grenade-launcher.
Before you even ask, no, I am not Ebenezer Scrooge’s great great…great (?) grandchild. I actually thoroughly enjoy the holiday season. I am a pagan, and therefore Yule means more to me than Christmas, but traditionally-speaking, my family still celebrates a standard Christmas with a tree, gifts, turkey and the ancient festival known as 24 Hours of A Christmas Story on TNT. I do love this time of year. It gives me a feeling of comfort and satisfaction to know that another year has passed without a complete mental breakdown (and boy oh boy did I come close this year!).
But Christmas carols represent a whole other side to the holidays. The side that brings out the crowded shopping malls blasting these simplistic and carefully-secular tunes and the rolling your eyes because your favorite classic rock station won’t play anything else until January 2nd. It’s one thing to casually listen to these songs while baking gingerbread cookies with your mom, but it’s another thing entirely when they are played over, and over, and over everywhere you go without any escape (except, maybe, to your local synagogue).
Also, when you think about it, some of these songs have very…questionable messages that aren’t even that subliminal. These are the songs that seem to be overplayed the most. I hold a select few as far away from my heart as possible, because every time I hear the opening bars to these songs I desperately try to find a different station, only to hear these fuckers playing on every other station I try.
And with that said….
5. Let It Snow. I live the Northeast, so immediately this song’s chorus will strike a nerve with me. Let it snow? In Florida maybe. We have too much of it here already. They can have it.
But listen to the first and second verses a time or two, and tell me you don’t get a mild creepy feeling…
“Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since there’s no place to go….let it snow (etc.)
It shows no signs of stopping,
But I got some corn for popping,
And as long as you love me so….let it snow (etc.)”
Basically, the singer is emphasizing the fact that you’re trapped…alone with him…in his house…because some big Nor’Easter is running up the coast. Sounds very The Shining to me, buddy. If the guy who wrote this song’s name is Johnny…then forget about it.
His name was Sammy Cahn? Oh, ok. Phew. I was about ready to lock myself in the bathroom…
4. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Reindeer!). This is probably one of the first Christmas carols children learn in school. It’s cute, it’s got the ‘differences rock’ message, and the Rankin & Bass film was my favorite growing up.
It’s not the song, but the song’s echoes that middle-school punks who think they’re being funny use to ruin the rest that irritates me. You know which ones I’m talking about. From Pinocchio to Monopoly to George Washington, now I cannot hear that song without hearing those subliminal lyrics in my head my friends taught me in fifth grade, thinking they were being clever. But really, none of it is funny, and it turns the song into a joke. A bad middle-school joke.
And it’s seriously inescapable. This song is forever destroyed in my mind.
3. Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Aka The Christmas Rape Song. I have the feeling this one is a little more recent than many people want to believe. The entire song is a duet between a girl who just wants to leave, and a guy who’ll seriously roofie her drink if it means getting some.
Don’t believe me? Just listen…
“The neighbors might think (Baby, it’s bad out there)
Say, what’s in this drink (No cabs to be had out there)
I wish I knew how (Your eyes are like starlight)
To break the spell (I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell)
I ought to say no, no, no, sir (Mind if I move closer)
At least I’m gonna say that I tried (What’s the sense in hurting my pride?)
I really can’t stay (Baby don’t hold out)
Ahh, but it’s cold outside…”
Yeah, nothing says Yuletide like spiked punch and not knowing what the word ‘no’ means.
2. The Christmas Shoes. This one not only is overplayed and repulsive in its overdone attempts to induce sympathy and sentimentality, but it’s story and message are, when you get right down to it, horrible.
For those of you lucky enough to not be familiar with the song, it goes like this: some Scrooge is buying last minute gifts and is stuck behind this kid buying pair of red shoes in line in front of him. The kid comes up short on the price of the shoes, but begs the cashier to cut him some slack because his mom’s sick, might die soon, so he’s buying her one last Christmas gift ‘so she’ll look beautiful’ if she goes to heaven…
“Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please
It’s Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there’s not much time
You see she’s been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight…”
Scrooge II spots him the change and goes about his merry way, touched by the gesture, as does the boy.
So, what have we learned from this song?
A-Apparently it’s perfectly all right to leave your dying mother’s bedside in order to buy her things. In fact, it makes you a better person. And inspirational person. Seriously, if the boy’s dad said ‘there isn’t much time’ shouldn’t you be at home spending those last precious moments with your dying mom instead of partaking in a last-second bout of commercialism?!?!
B-Apparently what they say isn’t true…you CAN take whatever you want up to the Pearly Gates with you…as long as they make you look smokin’ for St. Peter! Does that mean I can take my Coach bag to heaven too? Oh wait, I’m not going their anyway. Nevermind.
1. The Chipmunks Christmas Song. Fuck it. Fuck. This. Song. It’s mindless. It’s annoying. It’s three guys sucking back helium into a recording microphone back in 1958 and some jerk yelling at them. And it, for some reason unbeknownst to me, is beloved by millions and played no less than fifteen times a day on any given radio station between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think it might have had SOME merit if the lyrics were somewhat meaningful. But the whole song is the chipmunks wanting hula hoops and waiting impatiently for Christmas because Christmas = presents! Yay, commercialism! That’s what Christmas is all about!
Of Dice and Dungeon Masters: Who ARE These People?
When the phrase “Dungeons and Dragons” comes up, what image comes into your mind first? A strange twenty-sided die or some acne-suffering hermit? Neither should. For the realm of role players is vastly different than that of the stigma society placed upon the subculture of role-players.
Dungeons and Dragons is an example of a table-top role playing game (or RPG) in which a small group of people meet to create characters. It is with these characters that the players then go on adventures, usually as travelers. They are usually at the mercy (or, sometimes the lack thereof) of the leader of this group, or, “dungeon master.” While the core of “D&D” is fantasy-based, role-playing games can manifest in a variety of genres. Some even are based off of pre-existing universes, such as those found in movies or books.
But such an activity has never seemed to enter mainstream pop culture, except perhaps, as one to be ridiculed. It does seem to be, after all, another version of the old ‘make believe’ games everyone played when they were younger. Over time, the media began portraying the game as a juvenile, silly game, and its players as the stereotypical “dorky boy” who would rather slay a dragon than date a girl.
But, in reality, who are these people? Is there truth behind the myths and stereotypes? Who exactly would you find playing Dungeons and Dragons? And, is this subculture that the media presents as an underground group of nerds really so small and underground?
Meg Gresock, an avid player of not only Dungeons and Dragons but other various online role-playing games, explains that in spite of the lackluster reputation, she joins circles for the social experience and entertainment value.
“I’d heard a lot about [Dungeons and Dragons] in high school and on the internet and how much fun it was, but I never played it. Then I came to college and some friends decided to start a game, and I wanted to get in on it to see what it was like,” said Gresock. “And I was definitely not disappointed. It’s so much fun!”
Gresock has encountered some bad assumptions based on the mainstream view of the activity.
“I was talking with someone in a chat room and I mentioned that I played D&D, and the person automatically assumed that I was a boy! When I told her I was a girl, she got confused for a minute, and I think that says it all about what people think about the game and who plays it.”
Another Dungeons and Dragons player, Evian Russo, says that she has come across some negative stigma, but it doesn’t bother her.
“I don’t think anyone who makes fun of D&D players has ever sat down and played the game,” she says. “It’s wicked fun, and from what I see, everyone who gets involved always keeps coming back for more.”
Gresock then went on to explain that she’d gotten involved with D&D partially because of her Aunt’s experience in the past. “My Aunt joined a campaign back when it was still a very new thing, and she loved it.”
Both Gresock and Russo are college-aged women, which would automatically debunk many of the myths on who plays Dungeons and Dragons in the first place. Both women see the activity as a social pastime that is more than meets the eye.
“Yeah, it’s playing pretend in a way,” said Russo. “But isn’t acting the same thing? Doesn’t everyone fantasize? Take your daydreams, add more people and a few monsters and you basically have a circle!”
Gresock saw things a little differently.
“I don’t think of it as just role playing. It takes a lot of problem-solving, social interaction, and some plain luck with the dice to make it far in a campaign. I don’t see how it’s so different from playing Nintendo Wii or poker.”
But where did the outside stereotypes come from? What makes Dungeons and Dragons stand apart from other social activities and the people who partake in them? Coming from someone who also plays in a weekly campaign, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference. Perhaps American pop culture sees Dungeons and Dragons players as a deviance from the ‘norm’ because it is too afraid to see what would happen if it went mainstream. Or maybe it’s just a matter of the inability to break out of a stereotype that has been laid out for two generations, painting the world of tabletop role-playing as an undesirable social pastime.
“I don’t think setting social myths to a particular pasting is just found with D&D,” said Russo. “I’ve always held the assumption that people who play football are mindless jocks who like partying and having sex. It may not be true, but how do I know? I’ve never been on a team.”
Perhaps it is just a case of close-minded people who fear to wander outside their comfort zone. Dungeons and Dragons players come from all walks of life, and see their situation as social in spite of outsiders’ opinions. They are male and female. Their ages span from young childhood through adulthood and beyond. They look no different than anyone walking on the street, and have just as much of an interest in a social life as anyone else.
“Some of us are quirky, no doubt. But I consider that a plus. I’m proud of who I am,” Gresock concluded.
The moral of the story in this case is to not define a person solely by their interests, and likewise, to not judge an activity based on who you think participates. The only way to truly discover who these dungeon-delvers and orc-slayers are is to take a shot and roll the twenty-sided die for yourself.
Teenage Wasteland Syndrome: Battle Royale vs. The Hunger Games
So recently, a book was put into my hands by a close friend saying, ‘Read this! I know you like Battle Royale! You’ll love this, it’s like the American version of Battle Royale!”
Oh boy, I thought. Is there any escape?
But, seeing as I am more of a Battle Royale fan than I care to admit, I decided to read The Hunger Games anyway, just so see if it was more than the obvious rip-off I expected it to be. And, while I can give credit to the author to add a pretty unique spin on the infamous Japanese sociopolitical horror story, I still closed the book feeling unsatisfied, feeling like I expected a surge of empathy for the lead characters and finished the book, the only feelings in my mind were ones of ‘I need to finish some homework now.’
And, for the record, I am not going to summarize both books. Look it up on Wikipedia.
The thing is, I’m not the type of person one would expect to like a blood-pouring-out-of-your-eye-socket/senseless violence pulp fiction novel. But here’s the skinny on why I like Battle Royale: I see it as a novel that really respects youth, ironically. It takes a group of middle school kids completely seriously and gives each one of them a soul, a character, and a purpose. Sure there are some characters who are less developed than others, but I can’t think of a single one of the young characters who doesn’t have a legitimate motivation or back story that guided them to their current state. It explores the psychology and sociology of the mind of young people, and what makes it even more of a stand out concept to me is the main theme: this whole blood fest was not the fault of the children, but the adults who shoved them into a premature adulthood in one of the worst ways thinkable. Thinly-veiled parable, anyone?
American media, especially in recent years, takes that away from its under aged dramatis personae. Most American teenage characters are immature, self-loathing, melodramatic horndogs. They have one of two home lives: the nuclear family suburban home life that they are bored with, which provides their motivation for rebelling and trying to find a unique, existential purpose, or the most unfathomable existence not fit for a rat, which is supposed to make them ‘deep’ and ‘relatable.’ Life just isn’t fair because Johnny is dating Susie even though Mary is the one who really, really loves him.
This is the main reason, among others, that The Hunger Games was a huge disappointment to me. Most of its young characters are not only extremely underdeveloped, but most are just motivated by the fact that the government sucks and doesn’t take care of its people. The Hunger Games focuses on a single character, Katniss Everdeen, who fits into what I call the ‘Pity-Sue’ archetype. Her back story falls right in with the ‘my home life sucks, so sympathize with me’ arena, so I assume we’re supposed to accept her cold and calculating personality as ‘bad ass.’ I found it rather insulting, and despite the fact that she knew what the hard life was like and, therefore, wasn’t materially selfish, I found her to be a shallow, self-glorifying character. Very American, indeed.
Another point is the severe lack of motivation. Okay, so Katniss’ motivation is to not die, but in her scenario, she is thrust into a battle arena with complete strangers. So, basically, why not kill to survive? That makes the book less of a psychological profile and more of a blood bath amongst teenagers.
In Battle Royale, Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa are told to kill their best friends, their classmates, each other. So, how does one develop the motivation to survive while keeping their humanity and their soul? Do these adults controlling their lives even intend for them to keep their souls? What would you do in their place? Shuya Nanahara had a pretty crappy home life, if you could even call it that, but this didn’t turn him into a ruthless, rebellious punk. It made him turn to his friends for life support even more, which proved to make it even harder when the time came for him to choose between his own life and the life of his friends. Which, in my opinion, is more realistic in assuming that teenagers aren’t animals with primitive instincts, but complex creatures with just as much depth and social awareness as any fully-grown adult.
Also, the surrounding scenario in Battle Royale is a lot harsher for a character to put up with, upping the sympathy factor, but I digress.
As far as pure entertainment goes, I would put The Hunger Games on more equal ground with Battle Royale, but I am the type of reader who reads between the lines (if you’ll pardon the overused expression). I was hoping that an ‘American Battle Royale’ would be a bit more of a stretch into the realm of character development and thematic expression, but who am I to complain, unless I was to pen my own American take on the Japanese novel? And, if I did, what are the odds I would be scoffed as ripping off The Hunger Games?
Well, let’s see about that…
The Darkest Force in the Universe…
Do me a favor and close your mind for a second from all outside influences. Now, I am about to give you a word, and think of what comes to mind the instant you read the word and keep only that first image in your mind. Ready? Okay…
Pop Culture.
Okay fine, that was two words.
Literalisms aside, what came to your mind? The latest chart-topping Glee cover? Lots of half-naked ethnic stereotypes in a hot tub? A poster for Eclipse? One of Lindsay Lohan’s mugshots?
I saw something different. I saw a scene that took place many months ago in my own life. A scene where I confronted my mother and told her I had been purposefully taking in less than 500 calories every day and working out to the point where it induced fainting spells for several months in an attempt to lose weight. I saw her tears. I felt my stomach churn with both guilt and pride for being empty. I saw my fat, ugly reflection in the nearby mirror.
The media did not do this to me. Pop culture is the driving force behind my eating disorder, the one I still struggle with every day but am slowly starting to recover from. I see a major difference between media and pop culture.
The media is an unavoidable force, unless you lock yourself in a cave in Antarctica. Media, in the form of books, films, news, photographs, sights and sounds, is around us all the time. Media manifests itself in solid forms of communication, no matter what subject it takes.
Pop culture manifests itself in FORMS of media, like films, etc., but pop culture is more an ideology that changes whenever the invisible hand decides it wants something different to be the trend. Media is the delivery boy, and pop culture, the delivery. Pop culture and media are partners in crime, and it is through this deadly alliance that they affect or lives, whether we like to admit it or not.
Pop culture is what influenced me to think that I was a disgusting piece of trash because I was overweight. Why? Because the ideology that pop culture is pushing is that the smaller the body, the more attractive they are. The more impossible the body type, the more desirable towards men, which, by the way, pop culture dictated that EVERY girl wants.
And this can be applied to so many other trends and problems society sees. Pop culture, for instance, presents the ideology that high school is this be-all, end-all experience, and it’s where you’ll find your real friends, true love, and live out the best years of your life. Even in media artifacts at least partially targeted at a post-high school audience, like Glee. Whereas, in my personal experience at least, high school was more like going to the orthodontist: a miserable place of pain you HAD to visit in order to get what you really wanted.
Maybe that’s just due to the fact that no one broke out into a showstopper every time two people decided to go out. I only speak for myself here.
But I digress. What I’m trying to say is, pop culture and the ideologies it promotes are extremely dangerous. In my case, it did irreversible damage to my body, as my eating habits induced a permanent iron deficiency, and regardless of my recovery progress, I still have fainting spells at a moment’s warning. The ideas, dangerous or benign, spread like wildfire. The power can be catastrophic.
What I don’t understand is, we know this, and we know the power that pop culture can have an society such as ours, but why can’t this incomprehensible be used for the side of good? Instead of using pop culture to promote insane ideas of beauty and how to live life, we could use pop culture to draw attention to world poverty, or civil rights for those who don’t have them, or even, Isis forbid, to help convince people that differences is good and beauty is in the eye of the beholder?
I suppose this is how the world works. Until whatever time the invisible hand shifts the tides around in such a fashion that pop culture CAN be used for a great good, it’s up to the power of individual strength of will to convince themselves that they aren’t fat.
And whether or not being fat is a bad thing in the first place is another rant entirely…
Waiting For Reality 
