Sunday, November 16, 2003|
Our nation's thirst for revenge regardless of the consequences or "rightness" of our actions is demonstrated in the New York Review of Books this week. Thomas Powers details our march toward war and the "evidence" we presented to justify it in his essay, The Vanishing Case for War. A couple of quotes to whet your appetite: 12:39:10 PM | The CIA is as serious, as prudent, as honest as the presidents for whom it works -- never more. (Not exactly good news, eh?) [Robert] Byrd blamed the emotion of the moment, and that is surely part of it; but for the bigger part I blame the insistence of the President that Iraq threatened America, the willingness of the CIA to create a strong case for war out of weak evidence, and the readiness of Congress to ignore its own doubts and go along. (Preach it brother!) And then there's The War Within, David Botti's engaging essay about coming back to New York after four months in Iraq. Both essays are essential Sunday reading. Meanwhile, Louisiana elected Kathleen Blanco last night, the first democratic governor in eight years and the only woman ever to be elected to the office. She's as conservative as the republicans down here (they are all the same, really), but hopefully she'll be able to help us elect a democratic president next year. Keep your fingers crossed! I've asked our neighbor to start mixing up the good juju stew. We'll need all the help we can get. 
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I feel a rant coming on... 11:57:52 AM | The fatally attractive woman has become fatally doomed. It seems nearly every film these days features a beautiful woman who dies too young. Last weekend we saw Love, Actually, a rather awful film (there are more characters in it than an Altman film and they aren't handled nearly as well) with Liam Neeson as the grieving widower. Last night it was Mystic River, with the young Katy brutally murdered in the first act. My Life Without Me, previewed before the film last night, features another doomed gamine, this one the iconic young mother who will record her last moments on tape for her kids and stoically go it alone (which is supposed to be admirable, it seems -- to build a wall around you and be emotionally separate from those who love you.) I can't quite come to grips with Mystic River because there's so much about it that disturbs me. Luckily, Jonathan Rosenbaum at the Chicago Reader has written an accurate, scathing review, which I wish I'd read before seeing the film. His read of the inherent mysogyny and machismo of the film is right on, and he correctly links Silence of the Lambs to Eastwood's film by pointing out both films' glorification of morally questionable characters (and their mysogyny too, though Rosenbaum doesn't mention it. Silence of the Lambs was considered by some to be a "feminist" film because of Jodie Foster's character. That she was the only woman to make it through the film alive doesn't seem to matter to most critics, nor the fact that she spends the entire film frightened -- which I guess is the message of the film. We are victims in waiting, aren't we?). Rosenbaum also links the psychosis of the film's characters to our nation's -- our disturbing ability to dismiss atrocity with the righteousness of revenge. It should come as no surprise to me that so many young women are victims in film. Women make up less than 30% of all movie characters, and they make up even a smaller percentage of the industry's writers, directors, and producers. The message of these films, essentially, is to be afraid. You should be afraid of violence and disease, both of which seem to kill off young women in staggering numbers. That women outlive men by several years on average is of no consequence. The grieving widower, father, son will have his film.
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Last update: 7/17/05; 10:07:14 AM .
